Brendan Gallagher's attack on Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech during Thursday night's game was so vicious that even one of his former teammates is calling for the Canadiens forward to be suspended.
PK Saban, a former NHL defenseman and current ESPN analyst, said in a video posted to He explained that it was.
“It was a great game, everything was good, and then there was this play,” said Saban, who played four seasons with the 31-year-old Gallagher in Montreal from 2012 to 2016. “This is not a hockey play. It's not a collision in the corner. It's not a fight for the puck. This is a guy sliding the puck in the middle of the ice, and Gallagher has his elbow in his jaw.
“I don't know what else to call it, but to me these are hits that we couldn't have. That's totally inexcusable. There's no upside.”
Pelech, 29, was skating in the neutral zone with 8:10 left in the third period and just missed the puck when Gallagher barreled toward the defenseman and caught him with an elbow to the face.
The Islanders blueliner was attended to by the training staff before heading to the locker room.
Gallagher received a five-minute major and a game violation for an elbow to the head on the Islanders' two-score power play, but Sean Monahan scored the go-ahead goal at 17:48 of the third, and the Islanders scored twice. ultimately lost.
Islanders head coach Patrick Roy did not provide an update on Pelech's condition after the game.
“I think we all saw what happened,” Roy told reporters after the game, according to the newspaper's Ethan Sears. “I think the league will take a look at the hit. That's all I can say for now.”
Saban, who played for 13 years in Montreal, Nashville and New Jersey, asked the NHL Office of Player Safety to intervene.
He alluded to the call Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy made earlier in the season when he took a dangerous hit on the Panthers' Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Saban had publicly said the Long Beach, New York, native should be suspended for five games. The league gave McAvoy four games..
“To see such a great game and have a game like that, there’s no way player safety can be happy about it,” Saban said of Pelech’s hit Thursday.
“I have to say it's consistent, and I have to say that no matter who it is. We need to step up our player safety because we don't want to see hits like this in our games.”
