{"id":532116,"date":"2026-03-12T20:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532116\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:04:08","slug":"nhl-overrules-refs-rescinds-mackinnons-major-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532116\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Overrules Refs, Rescinds MacKinnon\u2019s Major Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Hockey League has rescinded the major penalty for goaltender intereference assessed to Colorado Avalanche\u2019s Nathan MacKinnon for running into Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram.<\/p>\n

The penalty came late in the second period of Tuesday\u2019s game in Edmonton. Referees Kelly Sutherland and Brandon Schrader called a major penalty on the play \u2014 a call they confirmed via video review. Major penalty calls are reviewed by the on-ice officials, not by the NHL\u2019s centralized Situation Room.\u00a0
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0
The NHL\u2019s Department of Player Safety opted not to levy additional punishment.\u00a0 Now Hockey Operations has gone back and removed the penalty, wiping MacKinnon\u2019s slate clean, as reported by Corey Masisak of the Denver Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Multiple game misconduct penalties within the same infraction category may result in an automatic one-game suspension. It happened to MacKinnon\u2019s former linemate Mikko Rantanen earlier this season.\u00a0 The Stars winger was hit with boarding major penalties twice in one week, resulting in an automatic one-game ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under Rule 23.6:<\/p>\n

Any player who incurs a total of two (2) game misconduct penalties in the \u201cPhysical Infractions Category\u201d, before playing in 41 consecutive regular season League games without such penalty, shall be suspended automatically for the next League game of his team. For each subsequent game misconduct penalty, the automatic suspension shall be increased by one game.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, the league\u2019s not wrong in their re-assessment of the play. As we discussed on the #RefsPodcast, we felt a minor penalty could be justified, but that a major penalty was too severe \u2014 especially considering that contact from defenseman Darnell Nurse helped to steer MacKinnon into the goaltender. The degree of violence of the hit, which is the differentiating criteria for a major penalty, would undoubtedly have been far lower \u2013 if there were contact at all \u2013 had Nurse not bumped the Avs\u2019 center.<\/p>\n

With the penalty rescinded, MacKinnon\u2019s slate is clean.<\/p>\n

It also shows \u2013 in a rare peek behind the curtain \u2013 that the NHL offices may not have agreed with the call on the ice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Hockey League has rescinded the major penalty for goaltender intereference assessed to Colorado Avalanche\u2019s Nathan MacKinnon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-532116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}