Dustin Byfuglien and Winnipeg Jets Getting Off Easy with 4-Game Suspension

The Winnipeg Jets have every right to be angry that one of their most important players is going to miss the next four games. But that anger should be directed entirely at Dustin Byfuglien, who committed a stupid and malicious act against a defenceless opponent. If anything, the team should be thankful the NHL’s Department of Player Safety limited the suspension to four games.

The case for the suspension, as laid out by Player Safety, is as follows:

“The threat of Miller getting another scoring chance clearly has passed, and he is ineligible to be hit in any way,” states the video. “Byfuglien not only delivers an illegal blow, he does so with excessive force to an unprotected and vulnerable part of Miller’s upper body.”

If anything, that’s an understatement. On the list of things the NHL would like to see removed from the game, the act of hitting a prone opponent with a stick in the head/neck area has to be up near the top. Asked his opinion of Byfuglien’s cross-check after the game against Winnipeg, New York coach Alain Vigneault didn’t hold back in his condemnation.

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“Violent, deliberate, could have broken his neck,” Vigneault told reporters in postgame comments shown on the team’s official site. “I don’t know what’s going to happen but it was one of the most vicious cross-checks I’ve seen this year.”

Really the only factor in Byfuglien’s favour is his relatively clean record; he has been fined on three occasions, but none of them are recent, and he has never been suspended previously. Given his record, four games is a pretty hefty punishment, but in light of the severity of the incident it could have been worse.

With Winnipeg currently in a tight three-way battle with Calgary and Los Angeles for one of the final playoff spots in the West, this is a significant blow to the team. Byfuglien has played both forward and defence this season and averages nearly 23 minutes per game in all situations. The Jets have only five games left on their schedule; with every point counting now, they’ll be down a critical component of their team for 80 percent of their remaining games.  

Jonathan Kozub/Getty Images

It is interesting, though, that Byfuglien will be available for Game 82. While all of Winnipeg’s games matter—it faces Vancouver, Minnesota, St. Louis and Colorado over its next four contests—none of those games are against teams the Jets are competing with for a playoff spot. Game 82 is against the Calgary Flames, and depending on what happens the rest of the way, Winnipeg may very well find that game determines whether or not it makes the playoffs.

Nobody (or at least, nobody outside of Manitoba) would have blamed the NHL for cracking down hard on a vicious incident, suspending Byfuglien for the remainder of the regular season. Instead, the Jets will have access to one of their most important players in what could be the team's most decisive game of the year.

In that sense, the team got off easy.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.