Two games for a blindside headshot on a franchise center shooting into an empty net tells you exactly how the National Hockey League values its stars. The tape shows Bo Horvat collecting the puck deep in his own zone at 18:25 of the third period on Thursday night. He fires it down the ice to seal a 4-1 win over Chicago. He has his head down. Frank Nazar lines him up and drives a shoulder straight through Horvat’s skull.
The overhead angles reveal absolutely no hockey play hidden inside the violence. The immediate aftermath features a massive scrum with Logan Stanley, Matthew Schaefer, Kyle Palmieri, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and half the Islanders roster jumping in to defend their captain. Horvat eventually skates off, though not before throwing a retaliatory punch at Nazar on his way to the dressing room. Then comes the Friday phone hearing with the Department of Player Safety. The league hands down a two-game suspension. Two games. Nazar loses $68,041.14 and will sit out Saturday against Carolina and Tuesday against Pittsburgh. He gets a brief mid-October vacation and is eligible to return by Thursday. Horvat, meanwhile, spent Friday with the medical staff and sits in concussion-spotter limbo.
A Fast Game Provides No Cover
Some defenders of the hit, including an incredibly diplomatic Palmieri, will point out the sheer speed of the sport. Palmieri said, “I don’t think it’s necessarily taking liberties. It’s a fast game, Bo is in a vulnerable position and he’s got to know better.” That defense crumbles immediately when you read the actual ruling from the NHL Department of Player Safety. They stated clearly, “It is important to note that both elements of the illegal check to the head are satisfied for this play.” The ruling confirmed the head was the main point of contact and the collision was entirely avoidable. You cannot blame the velocity of the sport when the league itself admits the hitter had the time and space to choose a different path.
When a 22-year-old forward takes a run at a vulnerable captain with less than two minutes left in a decided game, the punishment has to sting. Nazar had a clean record prior to Thursday. He had 71 points in 127 career games and was never known as a headhunter. This marks the first Blackhawks suspension since Brett Connolly sat for four games in 2021. The league factored in Nazar’s clean history and chose the lightest possible slap. They completely misread the temperature of the ice. A two-game ban treats a dangerous headshot like a minor clerical error. It feels like watching Walter White get a noise violation for blowing up a nursing home in Breaking Bad. The governing body failed to measure the actual damage. I rank this ruling in the absolute top tier of front-office negligence, right alongside every time the league pretends a star player’s brain health is a secondary concern.
The Cost of Doing Business
The Islanders rely entirely on Horvat right now. He already has four goals and five points through four games this season. He was the best player in the building on Thursday, potting two goals including the power-play strike and the empty-netter that earned him this trip to the doctors. Islanders coach Pete DeBoer looked exhausted by the sequence. Following the game, DeBoer noted the terrible timing and the target of the hit. By Friday morning, the uncertainty remained a dark cloud over the franchise. DeBoer said, “I think he’s going to see our people again this morning and see how he feels.”
I look at the disparity in outcomes and see a broken disciplinary system. The NHL Public Relations release outlined the financial penalty with total sterility. The statement read, “Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and, based on his average annual salary, Nazar will forfeit $68,041.14.” That money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund. A sixty-eight grand penalty sounds heavy until you remember Horvat might miss a week, a month, or the remainder of the calendar year. The league caps phone-hearing punishments at five games, yet they opted for two. They had the runway to make a statement and they chose a whisper instead.
The tape shows a unnecessary collision. Nazar had already scored Chicago’s only goal of the game earlier in the period, a 6-on-5 marker that briefly gave them life. The Blackhawks were down 3-1, their net was empty, and the contest was effectively over. Instead of skating out the clock and preparing for Carolina, Nazar made a choice that could alter the trajectory of the entire Metropolitan Division.
Nazar is eligible to return on Thursday against Winnipeg with a slightly lighter bank account. The Islanders still have no idea when Horvat will clear protocol, leaving their leading scorer in the dark while the guy who put him there sharpens his skates for the Jets.
