TORONTO — Edmonton defenseman Darnell Nurse was bloodied and had to be helped to the locker room after taking a hit to the head from Toronto forward Ryan Reaves early in the second period Saturday night in the Maple Leafs’ 4-3 overtime victory.
Nurse wheeled around his net and was caught high by Reaves before crashing to the ice. Nurse stayed down for a few minutes inside a hushed Scotiabank Arena as he was attended to by trainers. He didn’t return to the game.
Reaves was assessed a match penalty and a game misconduct. He exchanged words with Edmonton captain Connor McDavid before heading down the tunnel.
While Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch didn’t provide an injury update, Nurse was spotted in the hallway outside the locker room with a cut over his swollen right eye.
“It’s a dangerous play,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. ”(Reaves) has got to know that Nursey doesn’t see him coming and choose the right path there, and he doesn’t. It’s tough to see one of your teammates on the ice like that. Dangerous play.”
The 29-year-old Nurse has two goals and seven assists in 17 games this season.
“Penalty kill, power play, 5-on-5 minutes,” Knoblauch said. “He’s a very important piece of our team, especially how well he had been playing this last week or two.”
The 6-foot-2, 225-pound Reaves has been suspended three times in his 15-year NHL career, twice for hits, for a total of six games.
“That’s the side of the game you never want to see,” Maple Leafs winger Bobby McMann said. “Guys are playing hard. I don’t think he was trying to finish high like that – I know he wasn’t. He’s just playing it hard and trying to get through guys, trying to win a hockey game. Sometimes you clip a guy the wrong way.”
