Voráček picked up speed before the end of the third period, avoided the opponent in front of the red line, but he pushed the skates forward, kicked the Czech hockey player, and hit him on the knee. A clear foul, which was immediately claimed by the Blue Jackets and their coach Brad Larsen.
It looked awful in real life and in slow motion. However, the main referee of the match between Rehman and Lambert was probably affected by collective blindness at the incriminating moment. Nothing, no exclusion. “Perhaps it was clear to everyone that it was a foul,” Columbus striker Sean Kuraly did not understand the absence of a verdict.
Voracek writhed on the ice, holding his left foot, but finally jumped into the cabin on one leg, then wrote on Twitter over the weekend: “Not that there was a knee!” And added two photos, from which it is clear that Foligno took shameful work.
Instead of the judges, the striker Wild was punished at least by an NHL discipline, who fined Foligno with a maximum fine of $ 5,000.
Justice eventually won Columbus at least a win. At 59:28, Zach Werenski leveled the score at 2: 2 and Yegor Chinachov decided in the raids. “That was our answer,” Kuraly said proudly.
Pause? Maybe just a few days
However, the Blue Jackets lost two more key players in the match. Finn Patrik Laine resigned for a change after a collision with Jonas Brodin. Captain and most productive player Boone Jenner’s back injury worsened. “We just have to hope it’s not serious,” Columbus coach Larsen feared.
At least Laine said after Sunday’s practice that he will start in the next match with Vegas. “I estimate Jake’s break for a few days,” Larsen said.
If the Blue Jackets still want to think about the fight for the playoffs, then even Voráček’s medium-term absence would hurt them a lot. As the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, held by Washington, they are already short of 13 points, and Columbus has 23 more games to play by the end of the regular season.
After arriving from Philadelphia, the 32-year-old Voráček is the second most productive player of the 3 + 40 team. However, the weekend duel also disturbed the builders of the Czech national team for the World Cup in Finland, where the former national team captain promised to arrive. It would be difficult for the new coach Kari Jalonen to find a bigger leader than Voráček.
