Late in the first period tonight, Nashville Predators center Mike Fisher, in just his third game of the season, took a hard, high hit from Anaheim defenseman Francois Beauchemin that sent him right back to the dressing room. The Predators announced that he will not return to tonight’s game, suffering an “upper body injury”.
Beauchemin received a minor for an “illegal check to the head”, which, along with a roughing call, balanced out a double-minor for roughing that Kevin Klein got for attempting to retaliate to the hit.
After the jump, a few pics (UPDATE: Video added) of the hit in question…
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The play starts with a rush up-ice through the neutral zone, as Martin Erat carries up the left boards and makes a centering pass to Fisher…
As he crosses the red line and receives the puck, Beauchemin comes into view…
It looks like the target of the hit is shoulder-to-shoulder…
But the impact sends Fisher spinning to the ice:
A side view also makes it look like the intent was to go shoulder on shoulder, and no, it’s not the one he had surgery on over the summer:
The big question, of course, is how the league will look at this play. There has been an increased emphasis on penalizing head shots, so stay tuned tomorrow as we’ll expect to hear by then whether the league will hand out additional punishment.