Frank Nazar gets two games, and the 1-4 Blackhawks get thinner
A head shot on Bo Horvat costs Nazar $68,041.14 and costs Chicago its 19-minute forward against Carolina and the game after.
Look, the Department of Player Safety handed Frank Nazar two games and a bill for $68,041.14. The 14 cents is my favorite part. Somebody in that office did the long division by hand and wanted everybody to see the work.
The hit was an illegal check to the head of Bo Horvat at 18:27 of the third period Thursday, in a 4-1 Chicago loss on Long Island. Five-minute match penalty, and Horvat didn't come back. Grade: F. There are no style points for a head shot, and there aren't even participation ribbons.
The league gets a C-minus. Two games is the number you pick when you want the phone to stop ringing, not when you want the next guy to think twice before he finishes high. Long Island will say it should have been more. The league office apparently wanted to get home for dinner.
Here's the part that especially stings in Chicago. Nazar has three points in five games, by our count, and he's been playing about 19 minutes a night, per NHL data. On this roster that isn't a luxury. He's the guy holding the puck when something good is supposed to happen.
And not a lot of positive is happening in the Windy City. The Blackhawks are 1-4 with a minus-11 goal differential through five games, per NHL data. A minus-11 in five games isn't a slump, it's a lifestyle. Their penalty kill is working at 66.7 percent, which is roughly the success rate of my lawnmower every April.
Now Chicago faces Carolina tonight without him, and the following game as well. The Hurricanes are the last opponent you want when you're short a top-six forward and already giving up goals in bunches, because they forecheck like somebody's paying them by the hit. Good luck, boys.
The frustrating thing is that Nazar didn't need any of this. Horvat had two points that night and Nazar had one of his own, so the skill was already on display. He doesn't have to play like a third-pair defenseman trying to make the team in September.
Bruins tax: in Boston, that hit gets answered on the very next shift, and two games from the league would feel like a long weekend on the Cape.
Buddy, I'm begging you, keep it at the numbers. The hands are the reason Chicago pays you. The head shots are the reason you're now writing a check to the Players' Emergency Assistance Fund.
Two games, $68,041.14, and a 1-4 team that just got thinner up front. I said what I said.
