NHL Player Safety confirms McDavid facing suspension.

NHL Player Safety has confirmed that Oilers captain Connor McDavid is facing a suspension.

Connor McDavid is in trouble.

The National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety has confirmed that the captain of the Edmonton Oilers will indeed face a potential suspension after being offered a hearing by the disciplinary arm of the league. No word yet on when McDavid will have to face the music with a time and date not yet established by the league.

McDavid is facing the suspension for a nasty cross-check he delivered to the head of Vancouver Canucks forward Conor Garland on Saturday night.

Although McDavid is not regarded as a dirty player this will not be his first run in with the league’s Department of Player Safety, having previously been suspended once before during his NHL career.

McDavid was previously suspended for a illegal hit to the head that he delivered to New York Islanders forward Nick Leddy all the way back in 2019, and as a result I do not believe that his previous suspension will be a factor in his punishment this time around. Not only was it a very long time ago, but the type of infraction here is different enough that I do not believe it will be weighed against McDavid in his hearing this time around.

If you didn’t see the incident live on Saturday night and would like to check out a replay, you can view our article on the incident right here.

Connor McDavid facing accusations of rigging the skills competition for himself

Leading up to this weekend’s All-Star festivities in Toronto, there was lots of discussion surrounding the skills competition and how the NHL could improve it. To ensure things improved over last year’s event in Florida, the league reached out to Connor McDavid to help set up the individual competitions to restore the competition to its former glory.

To the credit of both McDavid and the league, the skills competition was much more entertaining this year than it has been in a very long time. To no one’s surprise, though, McDavid walked away with the $1M prize. Although McDavid is the best player in the league, many fans took to social media following his win to question whether he had set up the event to help himself with the $1M prize. Even The Athletic’s James Mirtle went as far as saying “Connor McDavid wins the Connor McDavid skills competition.”

McDavid downplayed his involvement in redesigning the competition during his press conference following the event, saying that there were lots of people involved, naming members of the NHL, but did not name another player that had any input.

As mentioned, this was by far the best skills competition in a long time, and kudos to McDavid for helping revive it. It does, however, seem a little suspicious that the guy that revamped each individual skill event is also the one that won half of them and the overall competition, does it not? At the very least, it gave him a competitive edge that the other players didn’t have.