There has always been a desire to see Pierre Engvall use his size more. I guess we should be careful what we wish for and after an ongoing battle with Sean Durzi, Pierre Engvall used his frame in order to wield his stick like a lumberjack wields their axe to cut down Sean Durzi at center ice.
Now, Pierre Engvall doesn’t seem like a malicious player based on his entire career to date, and this is a rare moment where he has initiated any form of contact with another player on the ice, so it’s certainly a surprise to see him ejected for intent to injure. That being said, how do you not punish this, and a discussion with the Department of Player Safety seems reasonable.
Toronto’s Pierre Engvall will have a hearing today for High-sticking Los Angeles’ Sean Durzi.
— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) December 9, 2022
How the Department of Player Safety will respond is anyone’s guess. To say that discipline is handed in an ad-hoc manner is about the politest way I can say this department is an absolute clusterf*ck on the best of days.
What we can count on is that if the DoPS is taking time to have the conversation, Engvall is going to miss at least a game or two. It’s for that reason that Joey Anderson has been recalled to offset the loss not only of Engvall, but Nick Robertson as well.
