Hrabík attacked Najman at 3:37, but referees Oldřich Hejduk and Jiří Ondráček did not disqualify him for the intervention. “He attacked Adam Najman with a sideways tackle. Hrabík conducted his actions at a lower attack speed, at the moment of execution he kept his hands close to his body, but in the final phase he intensified the tackle by moving his right shoulder and primarily hit the opponent’s head or neck area,” said the disciplinary chairman in a press release the Viktor Ujčík commission.
The fact that he had been disciplined in the last two years made it difficult for Hrabík to determine the punishment. Plzeň will be missing in today’s fourth match of the preliminaries of the playoffs, and if his team would level the series at 2:2, then also in Tuesday’s decisive fifth duel in Liberec. The White Tigers lead the three-game winning streak 2-1 after Saturday’s 2-1 win.
The 23-year-old former player of Liberec Hrabík, who made his debut in the Czech national team this season and played four matches for it, scored one assist in three duels of the preliminary round. In the regular season, he scored 28 points for 12 goals and 16 assists in 50 games.
At 7:35 p.m., Gríger pushed Ondrušek from behind into the goalpost and received a penalty for five minutes and the end of the game from referees Daniel Pražák and Lukáš Květon. “Dávid Gríger conducted his actions with low intensity, at the time of execution he kept his hands close to his body, but he intensified the intervention and it was carried out on a player who was in a frontal position to the goalpost the whole time, which can be characterized as dangerous,” Ujčík commented on the intervention.
With Gríger’s expulsion, the Hanáci turned the score to 2:1 with two goals before the end of the first period. Just after the end of the long weakening, the guests even increased to 3:1, but in the end Energie turned the game around and, after winning 7:4, leveled the fight for the quarterfinals at 1:1 on the matches. Gríger can return to the game in Tuesday’s fourth duel, which will be played in Olomouc.
In the regular season, Gríger was the fifth most productive player in Karlovy Vary with 27 points from 49 games and the team’s third best scorer with 13 goals. He has yet to score in the playoffs.
Plášek received two minutes for assault for a foul on Beránek at 57:01. “Ondřeje Beránek attacked with his body with a side-directed tackle at a high speed, without trying to get the puck. According to the video recording, he did not primarily hit the opponent in the head and neck area, but even so, the tackle can be described as dangerous, against which Beránek had only a minimal chance with the permitted method rules,” Ujčík said.
Like Gríger, Plášek will return to the game in Tuesday’s duel at Hané. The 22-year-old November signing of Olomouc from the Vancouver farm in Abbotsford scored two points for a goal and an assist in two games in the preliminary round. In 31 duels of the long-term part, Plášek scored six goals and nine assists.
