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Brendan Shanahan announced today that there would be no disciplinary action on Steve Downie for his hit on Roman Josi in the Predators-Avalanche game Friday night at the Pepsi Center.
From the official Twitter Feed:
Downey/Josi: Part 1 Downey's skates are on ice at impact. He does not launch up at Josi. Josi is low & attempting... pic.twitter.com/b3mPtJTKbL
— Brendan Shanahan (@NHLShanahan) October 5, 2013
Part 2 ...to avoid the hit. Downey's elevation comes AFTER contact, as a result of impact & rolling over him. pic.twitter.com/laHlvPtUzo
— Brendan Shanahan (@NHLShanahan) October 5, 2013
Patrick Roy made it clear that he felt the hit was clean in his press conference last night. "That was a great hit," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said in his postgame news conference. "I need to re-look at it, but I thought it was a fair check. What I like about Steve is he's a great leader right now on this team."
He added some thoughts on Downie himself, as well. "He's playing hard. Everyone's rattled after him, but he stays composed. He stays focused. A lot of times, I'm not so sure that he is, but he says, 'Patty, I'm under control. I'm under control.' I say, 'OK, good Just keep going then.'"
PA Parenteau added his own take on his teammate in the post game interviews, saying, "That guy's crazy! But we love him."
The Predators people didn't see things that way. "I take issue with that," said Paul Gaustad. "He's one of those players who looks for the crowd to cheer him on or something like that. I don't know … it was a dumb hit and we know who did it. We play these guys several times this year." Barry Trotz added, "We're trying to get all that out of the game, launching yourself with the head shots and stuff like that."
Josi was injured on the play. No word yet on how severely he was hurt.
For your reference, here's the disciplinary explanation video the Dept of Player Safety issued previously: