Former Bruin Dennis Wideman In Trouble With The League
Former Boston Bruins defenseman and now Calgary Flames alternate captain Dennis Wideman is in some seriously hot water after making a bad move on the ice. In last Wednesday’s game between the Calgary Flames and the Nashville Predators, Wideman bizarrely plowed into NHL linesman Donnie Henderson. The hit looked intentional.
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The NHL came down hard on Wideman for his hit. The Department of Player Safety issued an indefinite suspension of Wideman. The league will not discuss the hit with him until after the All-Star break. He has a meeting with league next Tuesday.
Wideman played four seasons with the Boston Bruins. Wideman was traded before the start of the B’s 2010-11 season as part of a deal that brought Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell to Boston. The Bruins went on to win the Stanley Cup that season.
Wideman attempted to explain his actions after the game. He did claim to apologize to the ref after the hit was made.
“I took a pretty good hit down in the corner and had some pretty good pain in my shoulder and neck,” Wideman said. “I was just trying to get off the ice and kind of keeled over. At the last second, I looked up and saw (Henderson) and couldn’t avoid it. I went up to Donnie and apologized to him on the ice.”
Wideman may have some small defense here. Just before he engaged Henderson, he got knocked to the ice by Predators forward Miikka Salomaki. (Salomaki’s hit was questionable, but the refs decided not to penalize Salomaki for the hit.) Wideman did look a little dazed, and he might have just been off when he made contact with the ref.
If the league doesn’t believe that, and they think it was an intentional hit, then the former Bruin will be sitting for the foreseeable future. Even though Wideman has no past run-ins with the league, the minimum suspension he would be looking at is 20 games, most of the remaining season.