Anaheim Ducks forward Antoine Vermette was given a game misconduct and ejected from last night’s game against the Minnesota Wild for abuse of an official. After losing a face-off in the third period, Vermette reached out with his stick and hit first-year referee Shandor Alphonso in the back of the leg. It was not necessarily vicious—he almost seemed like he was trying to get Alphonso’s attention in an admittedly really dumb way—but it was unusual.
Vermette missed the last seven-plus minutes of the game, but he could miss even more time. Under NHL rules, deliberately striking an official in any way is an automatic ten-game suspension. He didn’t speak after the game, but team captain Ryan Getzlaff and head coach Randy Carlyle both said they thought Vermette had a minor brain fart for a second.
Videos by VICE
“I think it was pretty innocent,” Getzlaff said. “I understand what the referee’s calling, and we can’t have that in a game. It was a pretty light tap on the leg. He was a little frustrated. I think Vermy talked to him after or whatever. … I can’t imagine it being too much after that.”
Carlyle thought Vermette was upset that Alphonso dropped the puck before he was ready, and he wanted him to whistle the play dead and start over.
“I looked at it and said, ‘Why is he dropping the puck?’ It looked like as if he was tapping him and just telling him a blow-the-whistle-type-of-thing. It wasn’t really a vicious or any type of malice thing. He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. It was more of a tap to blow-the-whistle-type-thing. … Because usually what happens, if they do drop the puck unfairly, the linesman or the referee will blow the whistle and reset it.”
Vermette did get the reset, but he was not going to be back on the ice for the next face-off. It didn’t cost his team too much, though. Anaheim beat the Wild 1-0.
