Brenden Dillon gets tossed for the hit of the year

Hockey fans, we've got the hit of the 2023-24 season on the docket tonight.

Fair Warning: If you're a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, you're probably not going to like my assessment of what transpired this evening.

Penguins forward Noel Acciari was absolutely ROCKED this evening by Winnipeg Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon with a BRUTAL open ice, neutral zone body check.

Here's the hit in question:

A lot of the chatter online is talking about how dirty of a hit this is but... I'm not so sure.

What I see is Acciari flying through the neutral zone with his head down. Dillon steps up and delivers a strong shoulder hit with his elbow tucked and his skates on the ice. 'Keep your head up', as they used to say.

I still imagine that Dillon will receive a hearing with NHL Player Safety as a result of this hit, I just wish the hockey world wasn't so reactive to big, open ice hits. This used to be a routine highlight reel hit... now we see a couple of these a season.