NHL Player Safety hands out its first suspension of the preseason

UPDATE: Melanson has been suspended two games by NHL Player Safety.

Read below for our earlier report on this developing story.

NHL Player Safety has announced that it will have a hearing today with Seattle Kraken forward Jacob Melanson for an illegal hit to the head of Edmonton Oilers forward James Hamblin.

Check it out:

And here's the hit in question:

That's a pretty clear headshot to me and is a perfect candidate for supplemental discipline. The thing is... who knows what the call will be from NHL Player Safety? Is it a fine? Is it a suspension? If it's a suspension how long will it be? The thing with NHL Player Safety is that no one seems to have any inkling of what they'll do and how they'll rule in a given case. The NHL Player Safety under former enforcer George Parros is a complete crapshoot. 

To me, I'd slap Melanson with a fine as a first offender. From there though, I'd give him a clear indication of what kind of suspension he's looking at if he were to offend again. To me, that's key. Imagine you're a rookie in this league and you get hit with a $5,000 fine and a "don't do that again, naughty boy". You'd absolutely laugh it off with your buddies... but if you were threatened with say a three game suspension, that actually holds weight. That could get you to change your ways, a bit. The way that things are, with no sense of continuity between punishments, there's little incentive for a player to change his ways. But an escalating list of punishments that is made clear to the players should have a real impact.

In any case, I suspect that Melanson will face some sort of fine and will move on. It's also worth noting that he received a major penalty and a game misconduct penalty for the hit. As for Hamblin, he appeared to shake the hit off just fine and stayed in the game. The 23 year old Edmonton native has been wearing the "C" for the Oilers in training camp and the preseason after two stellar campaigns with the team's AHL affiliate Bakersfield Condors. He's on an NHL contract for the first time in his career and at 23 years old it's now or never for his NHL future.