Five games. That's what the NHL decided Auston Matthews's wrecked season was worth, and it's exactly why Radko Gudas keeps doing this.
Back in March, the Ducks defenceman caught Matthews with a knee-on-knee hit and got tossed from the game. Matthews didn't come back: an MCL tear, a quad contusion, done for the rest of 2025-26. The Department of Player Safety looked at a season-ending knee on one of the sport's biggest stars and settled on five games.
Now look at the calendar. About four weeks before he got Matthews, Gudas put Sidney Crosby on the shelf at the Winter Olympics. Crosby left Canada's quarterfinal against Czechia with a lower-body injury, missed the gold-medal game, and was looking at a month out. Two of the most recognizable players alive, both hurt within a month of each other by the same defenceman.
Five games means almost nothing, and the comparison proves it. Charlie McAvoy got six games to start this season for a stick slash on Buffalo's Zach Benson. A slash. Gudas ended Matthews's year and came in under that.
Most knee-on-knee contact is a mess of a play: a puck carrier twisting to dodge a check and the legs catching. One of those is bad luck. When it's the same player collecting superstars a few weeks apart, the league stops getting to shrug. Player Safety disciplines the single hit and ignores the history behind the man throwing it, which is how a guy with Gudas's track record draws the same mid-range number a first-timer would.
This is on the Department of Player Safety. They have the power to escalate for repeat offenders. They choose not to, and the result is a suspension so cheap it reads like a cost of doing business. Brad Treliving was furious, phoned around, and it didn't matter, because the people who actually set the price weren't listening.
Gudas, for his part, said he felt bad about it. I'm sure he did.
Matthews is back now, off to a hot start, with Toronto sitting 3-2-1 through six games. The system worked out fine for everyone except him. He paid for the hit. Gudas paid five games. Until the NHL makes the second number hurt, the next star to get kneed is already on the schedule.
