Charlie Coyle's Very Legal Hit

A little review of the incredibly clean, but somehow deserving of a match penalty hit that Charlie Coyle delivered to Columbus F Artem Anisimov last night.

Kind of reminds you of the scene in D2 when Dean Portman gets tossed from the first USA-Iceland game, 30 seconds into the contest.

For once, LaPanta and Greenlay had the correct analysis on the Coyle hit (But if you had watched the CBJ feed, they thought mich differently). It was a shoulder to shoulder to hit that ended up having contact to the head because Anisimov was reaching for the puck. Coyle didn't throw an elbow or have an exploding shoulder when he hit Anisimov. He just went through him.

Coyle received a match penalty on the play after the officials got together and talked about it following Coyle and Dubinsky's fight. So had Dubinsky not gone after Coyle, there would not of been a match penalty there.

Thanks to @cjzero for this gif once again

Anisimov did not return to the game last night, and it was reported today that he will be out indefinitely.

After taking all this into consideration, the NHL Department of Player Safety did not choose to hand down any discipline to Charlie Coyle. So they too felt the hit was legal. Its just a shame that Artem Anisimov was seriously hurt on the play.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell