NHL to hold hearing on Brandon Prust hit, Derek Stepan has surgery on broken jaw
Posted May 23, 2014 12:52:56 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Rangers forward Derek Stepan, laid out by a blindside hit from Montreal’s Brandon Prust, has a broken jaw that required surgery Friday.
New York coach Alain Vigneault provided the injury update the morning after his team’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Canadiens in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final.
The NHL has scheduled a hearing for Friday into Prust’s hit.
The Canadiens forward blindsided Stepan with a late shoulder hit, leaving him lying face down on the ice about three minutes into Thursday’s game. There was no penalty on the play and Stepan returned to the ice later in the period after going to the dressing room.
“We looked at it,” Vigneault, speaking after the game, said of the hit. “The referees missed it.”
A team spokesman said X-rays after the game were negative. But Stepan was in pain and saw a specialist Friday, when further tests detected the broken jaw.
Vigneault said he would know more about Stepan’s condition after the surgery.
Habs forward David Desharnais called it a clean hit. He told reporters that while no one wants to see a player get injured, Prust was just trying to set the tone.
New York leads the series to two games to one.
The Prust hearing was announced on Twitter by the NHL department of player safety.
