Montreal Canadiens: AHL Suspends Jayden Struble For Three Games

The Montreal Canadiens have an impressive group of young defensemen on their roster. Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Arber Xhekaj and Justin Barron are playing prominent roles for the Canadiens at a young age and playing well at the big league level.

They also have two of their top prospects, Lane Hutson and David Reinbacher developing at lower levels and they appear to feature prominently on the Canadiens blue line of the future.

The Laval Rocket are also watching a couple of young defenders learn the ropes at the pro level. Logan Mailloux brings an offensive punch that teams dream of having on the right side of their defense. He has played a lot with 22 year old Jayden Struble, but Struble is going to be out of the lineup for a while.

The Canadiens second round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft is 6 feet and weighs just over 200 pounds but he plays the game like he is the biggest guy on the ice every night. He brings a physical presence to the Rocket, and has added four points in 11 games in his first full pro season as well.

His physical nature got him into a little trouble at the end of the Rocket’s latest game. Just after the buzzer sounded, a Manitoba Moose player, Nikita Chibrikov two-hand slashed a Rocket player. Struble got involved in the post-game scuffle but was assessed a game misconduct for leaving the bench at the end of a game and getting a penalty.

Struble was on the bench at the end of the game and did jump into a scrum after jumping on the ice. This is a huge no-no in hockey these days. Struble got a roughing minor as well as an unsportsmanlike minor. Since he was assessed penalties after leaving the bench, he was also given a game misconduct.

This put him in a position where he would be reviewed by the league for a suspension. Considering he was given minor penalties and not a fighting major or a match penalty for attacking the player, a one-game suspension would seem to be enough punishment.

Instead, the AHL ruled that Struble would miss three games for his role in the post-game melee. It seems a bit harsh, especially given that the Moose player that also left the bench and joined the scrum got just one game, and the Moose player that unnecessarily slashed Brady Keeper hard after the buzzer and started the whole thing got nothing at all.

Well, nothing aside from a right hook to the face from Keeper.

Struble will miss today’s rematch with the Moose as well as home games on Wednesday against the Belleville Senators and Friday against Lehigh Valley.

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