Dallas Stars forward Joe Pavelski leaves the game after a high hit from Minnesota’s Matt Dumba as the 38-year-old suffers another serious injury in the playoffs
- Joe Pavelski had to be helped off the ice after a huge punch from Matt Dumba
- Pavelski suffered a serious head injury during a 2019 playoff game against Vegas
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Dallas center Joe Pavelski pulled off the Stars’ loss in their playoff opener after conceding a huge hit to Minnesota defenseman Matt Dumba who was handed no major penalty after a lengthy replay review by officials Monday night.
Dumba did receive a two-minute minor for rough play, although the officials had initially announced a five-minute major penalty after play midway through the second period of the game the Wild won 3–2 in double overtime.
Honestly, I thought it was a straight hit. I thought (the refs) would see the same thing. Shoulder to shoulder,’ Dumba said. “I don’t even know why I got the clearance, probably because I was already in the box.”
Pavelski looked shaky as he was helped off the ice. Coach Pete DeBoer, who said after the game he hadn’t looked closely at the game, said the 38-year-old striker hit his head on the ice when he fell.
We have the best civil servants in the world. They called a five, they rated it, which is the right thing to do. If they reviewed it and decided it wasn’t a bad hit, you know, it’s not for me to argue with that,” DeBoer said.
“They had to look at it from multiple different angles and that was the decision they made, so we have to live with that.”
Dallas Stars forward Joe Pavelski was forced to leave his team’s first round match against Minnesota
Pavelski was knocked down by a huge shoulder-to-shoulder hit from Matt Dumba van de Wild (24)
DeBoer said he was not confident that Pavelski would be available for Game 2 on Wednesday night.
It is not the first time that Joe Pavelski has suffered a serious head injury in the first round of the playoffs.
In Game 7 of the first round in 2019, Pavelski – then on the San Jose Sharks – was the victim of a strange double play against the Vegas Golden Knights. Pavelski was checked by Vegas’s Cody Eakin and was hit by Paul Stastny of the Golden Knights on his way down. Pavelski hit his head on the ice and eventually left the game. He did not return until Game 7 of the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals, where he helped defeat the Colorado Avalanche.
That injury helped prompt the NHL to expand its video review process so officials could analyze major penalties to determine if the call was correct. That change gave referees the option to reduce a major penalty to a minor, as happened with Dumba’s hit on Monday night.
If that elaborate process had been up and running in 2019, it could have potentially turned Game 7’s complexion into a first-round tie between Vegas and San Jose after Pavelski, then with the Sharks with DeBoer as his coach there, took a hit from Cody Eakin.
The Golden Knights were leading 3-0 when Eakin got a big penalty for that hit, which the league later told Vegas was not the right call. The Sharks scored four times on the ensuing major penalty to win 5–4 in overtime.
Pavelski had to be helped off the ice and was described as “wobbly” by coach Peter DeBoer
After the hit a scrum ensued as Max Domi (18) went after Dumba and started a pile-on
While Pavelski remained on the ice Monday night, Stars teammate Max Domi went after Dumba and threw some hard punches before landing in a pile on the ice, with umpires and Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov also on top of them. Kaprizov was eventually pulled out by a teammate.
Domi got 10 minutes of misconduct.
“I didn’t really see the actual hit in real time, I just saw Joe laying there,” Domi said.
When asked about Dumba’s penalty being reduced from a five-minute major to a minor one, Domi replied, “I trust they will make the right decision.” So whatever they saw, they saw and made the assessment. … It’s part of the game.’