Major Suspension Incoming for Oilers Superstar After Vicious Cross Check

The Edmonton Oilers are limping into the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and on Monday night they had the opportunity to take on their opponents for their first round series, the familiar Los Angeles Kings.

Unfortunately, things between these bitter divisional rivals got ugly, with Darnell Nurse making one of the dirtiest possible plays as he drove the head of opponent Quinton Byfield into the ice with a vicious cross-check.

There's no other way around this, this was straight up intent to injure an opponent just days ahead of their Stanley Cup Playoffs series, as Nurse intentionally cross-checked Byfields head directly into the ice in a disgusting act.

He was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct, and now, the belief around the league is that the Oilers could be missing another player for the start of their series, with a suspension likely incoming for the veteran Nurse.

That would be another major blow for Edmonton, who have already confirmed that Mattias Ekholm will miss the entire series against the LA Kings, and with just one regular season game remaining, any suspension over one game will cause him to miss time in that series.

We've seen similar plays to this in 2024/25 with players driving their opponents head into the ice, with Minnesota's Ryan Hartman famously suspended for 10 games (later reduced to 8), and given how similar the plays were, it's very likely that Nurse should face a similar fate when he has to take on the NHL's Department of Player Safety.