Peel: Why Player Safety got it right with Rasmus Andersson’s $5,000 fine

Tim Peel
Tim Peel
Rasmus Andersson full

Amid a feisty first period in the first Battle of Alberta of the season, cameras appeared to capture Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson headbutting Oilers forward Kailer Yamomoto.

The clip (below) went viral on social media before Andersson even finished serving his two minor penalties for roughing and elbowing.

But not every play is actually what it appears to be – and Saturday night was the latest example.

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety issued Andersson a $5,000 fine for roughing on Sunday, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

They got it right because Andersson did not headbutt Yamomoto.

If you take a look at the incident from a different camera angle (below), you can see that Andersson instead punched Yamomoto in the face with his glove, while simultaneously ducking to avoid contact.

From one angle, it looked like a headbutt. From another, it’s clearly a punch – which is why the play on the ice never rose to the match penalty level in the eyes of the on-ice officials, who were standing right there.

The NHL is closely monitoring gloved punches to the face. In this case, Player Safety clearly felt like Andersson’s punch did not rise to the same level of Dylan Larkin’s punch last Thursday night, which warranted a one-game suspension for “punching the unsuspecting [Mathieu] Joseph with a closed hand with sufficient force to knock him to the ice,” as the league’s video stated.

This new angle of Andersson’s scrum with Yamomoto also lined up with Andersson’s postgame explanation to the media.

“I thought he kind of slashed Marky [Jacob Markstrom], but now when I saw it afterwards, it was our sticks that hit the post,” Andersson told reporters. “Obviously, I kind of elbowed / punched him on the first one, and there was an altercation, obviously. Then, he pulled my bucket [helmet] down. I didn’t really see it, but when he pulled my bucket down, I thought we were fighting. It felt like he ripped off my glove, so I thought we were fighting at that point. I didn’t really see that he didn’t fight or anything.”

Recently retired NHL referee Tim Peel is Daily Faceoff’s Rules Analyst. Peel refereed nearly 1,400 NHL regular season games over a span of 21 seasons, in addition to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

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