Sean Monahan rocks Brady Tkachuk with cross-check to the head.

I won't be surprised if Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk still has his head ringing when he wakes up tomorrow morning.

On Saturday night, Tkachuk took a pretty nasty shot to the head when he was struck by the stick of veteran National Hockey League forward Sean Monahan. The Columbus Blue Jackets forward is not known as a dirty player by any stretch of the imagination but his stick would ring off of Tkachuk's dome with a cross-check like motion, causing Tkachuk's head to rock back from the impact.

Tkachuk, who is not known for embellishment, was clearly feeling the effects of that blow as well, clutching at his head while looking around in an attempt to figure out what had just happened.

As I mentioned Monahan is not known for being a dirty player and it actually looked like he was trying to avoid Tkachuk who suddenly cut in front of him. Monahan jumped and tried to raise his stick over Tkachuk, at least that is how it looked to me, but instead of clearing Tkachuk's head he would clip it on the way up instead.

The Senators have not made any attempts to retaliate towards Monahan following this incident so I suspect that they also recognize that this was an error rather than a malicious attack on the part of Monahan.

Here is a look at the replay: