NHL Player Safety officially comes down on Carson Soucy.

The National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety has made it official.

Vancouver Canucks defenseman Carson Soucy is now facing a suspension for his cross-check to the face/neck area of Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid, and the wording of the announcement may be a cause for concern in and of itself as far as the Canucks are concerned.

In an official release, the disciplinary arm of the league has announced that Soucy will have a hearing for his infraction, but in a bizarre twist there has been no date or time set for Soucy's hearing. Game 4 is of course scheduled to take place on Tuesday which leaves very little time to schedule the hearing prior to that contest.

This suggests to me, rather strongly, that the league has already made the decision that Soucy will be getting at least 1 game for this infraction, which would remove the urgency to get this done before Game 4.

There's no question about the fact that Soucy struck McDavid in the face/neck area, and the fact that it occurred after the final buzzer is what I believe caused it to rise to the level of a suspension in the eyes of the NHL and Player Safety.