Nolan shares Dep’t of Player Safety judgement process

Jordan Nolan sat out Monday’s 3-2 win over the Calgary Flames after receiving a one-game suspension for a hard gloved punch to the face of Edmonton’s Jesse Joensuu during a scrum deep in Los Angeles’ end late in the second period.

“A guy went hard to our net,” Nolan recalled of the play. “Guys have been doing that a lot this year, going hard towards Quickie and giving Doughty little shots. We try to stick up for guys and make sure they don’t do that again.”

Darryl Sutter noted that “It’s not a chapter in the history of the road trip.” Nolan accepted the penalty, and the team responded by placing Tanner Pearson into the lineup.

But what happens when judgments are levied against players for infractions that aren’t substantial enough to draw the player to the league’s office?

On Wednesday, Nolan explained the process that took place on Monday morning.

“We had a little conference call – me and Darryl on the phone. We got a call from Brendan Shanahan on the league. We have our representatives. We have NHLPA, they have their NHL staff, and we just talked about the incident and kind of say what happened. They give their thoughts, I give mine. The call you back in about half hour and let you know what happened.”

Gripping, right?

On whether he speaks on his own behalf, or whether the NHLPA speaks for him:
I spoke a little bit, just gave them my side of the story, and then just talked about my history in the league and stuff like that.

On whether he offers a strident defense of his position:
It’s all pretty straight forward. The video was pretty clear. [I told them about] my thought process and stuff leading up to that play, and the aftereffect of it. There’s not much to talk about when the video’s right there.