Brendan Gallagher’s hit on Islanders defenseman Adam Pelech in Thursday night’s game was so vicious that even one of his former teammates is calling on the Canadiens forward to be suspended.
Former NHL defenseman and current ESPN analyst P.K. Subban explained in a video he posted on X that the hit in the Isles’ 4-3 loss was one that the league can’t allow to happen again and was “inexcusable.”
“It’s a great game, everything is good and then there’s this play,” said Subban, who played four seasons with Gallagher, 31, in Montreal from 2012-16. “It’s not a hockey play. It’s not a collision in the corner. It’s not a battle for the puck. This is a guy skating the puck through the middle of the ice and Gallagher throws his elbow right into his chin.
“I don’t know how else I’m supposed to call that, but to me those are the hits that we just can’t have. That’s just inexcusable. There’s no upside.”
Pelech, 29, was skating through the neutral zone with 8:10 left in the third period and had gotten rid of the puck when Gallagher came barreling toward the defenseman, catching him with an elbow to the face.
The Islanders blue-liner was attended to by the training staff before heading to the dressing room.
Gallagher was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct for an elbow to the head, a power play the Islanders scored twice on, but Islanders eventually lost after Sean Monahan scored the go-ahead goal at 17:48 of the third.
Islanders head coach Patrick Roy did not have an update on Pelech’s condition after the game.
“I think we all saw what happened,” Roy told reporters after the game, per The Post’s Ethan Sears. “I think the league’s gonna review the hit. That’s all I can say for now.”
Subban, who played 13 years with stops in Montreal, Nashville and New Jersey, called on the NHL Department of Player Safety to step in.
He alluded to a call he made earlier in the season when Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy laid a dangerous hit on the Panthers’ Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Subban had publicly said that the Long Beach, N.Y. native should be handed a five-game suspension, but the league handed McAvoy four games.
“To see a game like this that’s been so good, to have something like that, Player Safety can’t be happy with that,” Subban said about Thursday’s hit on Pelech.
“I gotta call it consistent and I have to call it that way no matter who it is. I don’t want to see hits like this in the game and Player Safety has got to step up.”
