Here’s how the Wild broke Johnny Gaudreau with at least 21 slashes in 1 game

By now you may have heard that the Calgary Flames will be without their best player for six weeks with a fractured finger.

You may also be aware of how upset the Flames are about it. Not the fact that he’s injured. Oh, they’re upset about that. The 23-year-old is called “Johnny Hockey” for a reason. Few NHL players are as dynamic with the puck as Johnny Gaudreau. He uses his speed, soft hands, and tiny 5’9 frame to dart, swerve, spin, and slice through defenders on the regular.

So how do you slow a player like that down? The Minnesota Wild took the simple approach on Tuesday: slash at his stick and hands until he backs off or breaks. The latter happened. It’s basically Hack-A-Shaq for hockey.

That’s what the Flames are truly upset about. Here’s Calgary general manager Brad Treliving speaking about the tactics against Gaudreau to the Calgary Sun (emphasis mine):

“It’s a tough job and in our case you’re voicing your frustration,” said the Flames GM of his talks with NHL Director of Officiating, Stephen Walkom. “There are tactics with good players, but when you chop a guy in the hand there’s a rule that says you can’t do that.

“We’re not naïve – do we whack guys, too? Probably. But the frustration comes when that turns into a player being out for an extended period of time.

“When you look at that game, it wasn’t the first one. This wasn’t a unicorn that popped up in the middle of a period. By our count there were 11 chops on (Gaudreau) in the game. Two, three, four, I got it, but maybe at nine we dial it in a bit.”

Eleven chops! Wow. That’s a lot.

We’re sorry to inform you, Brad, that your count was off by about 10. We hopped into the hockey time machine developed by SB Nation scientists and counted every single time the Wild either hacked high up on Gaudreau’s stick or simply blindly swung at his hands.

Go get some popcorn or something. This could take awhile.

You’ll notice this theme a lot. Gaudreau is well-known for his slipperiness on zone entries. So this situation happens a lot: Koivu knows Gaudreau has a passing option on the wing, but he also knows Gaudreau can blow by him. He guesses, swings, and Gaudreau gets the pass off anyway.

Without knowing the end result (this is the last Gaudreau goal you’ll see for six weeks) this is fun to watch. He slips through three Wild defenders and slips the puck past the goalie while they rain slashes on him from every angle. This is why Johnny Hockey is a thrill.

This one is pretty harmless, honestly. Just a little love tap as Gaudreau makes Haula chase him. As far as hockey plays go, this is pretty common. Nothing to see here.

This infraction was so subtle I hardly noticed it on the first viewing. Brodin’s just messing around with Gaudreau here, and it’s innocuous enough I almost didn’t include it. But Gaudreau does back off a bit and grimace, and this whole injury is probably about accumulation. So here it is.

Alright, this is where the Wild stop being innocuous and start getting blatant. It’s hard to blame them. Up until now, they’ve gotten away with most of these. Why not push the envelope? It’s up to the referees to stop it. Especially since you can clearly see Folin reach around the heart of Gaudreau’s stick just to slash him on the hands.

Zucker got busy. In the span of two shifts, the Wild forward managed to land three hard whacks on the hands of Gaudreau.

Seem familiar? You feel like you’re about to get beat, so you compensate with a borderline slash. It’s so natural in hockey, most of them don’t get called. But notice how we’ve gone past the count of the Flames’ GM by now? One of these common slashes should get called at this point.

Especially those two. Yeesh.

After that one, Gaudreau looked bewildered.

So that’s at least 14 questionable whacks in one period. This is fine.

This is the first of a few that occur while Gaudreau doesn’t even have the puck. Though hockey wisdom will tell you that if you go to the front of the net or into the slot, you better be ready for these things.

But, again: accumulation.

And now it’s time for power plays. The Flames, like a few other teams, love the drop pass through the neutral zone on the man advantage. Naturally, the receiving and carrying duties fall to Gaudreau.

And, naturally, the Wild’s chosen defense for his zone entries is amputation.

By the way, if you’re wondering at this point if the Wild are limiting this to just Gaudreau, here’s your answer:

There is no point to that slash. By the time Zach Parise makes it, Dennis Wideman had turned away from him. The odds of lifting his stick are nil. And the stick obviously wasn’t the target anyway.

I feel like this GIF sums up Gaudreau’s night. Gaudreau does sort of hook Eric Staal here, but Suter’s response (a slash to the hands and a takedown) seems a little aggressive. And we have our first penalty against the Wild for something on Gaudreau.

How’re you hanging in there, Johnny?

If we were to pinpoint the first sign of an injury, this would be it:

This is the one the Flames seemed to single out when announcing Gaudreau’s injury. So it’s likely this is where that finger first broke.

But he kept on playing. In hindsight, not wise!

*This technically isn’t a slash as much as it is Folin just standing Gaudreau up at the blue line. Perfectly legal. Perfectly fine. But he pushes right into those battered wrists and fingers. And Gaudreau immediately heads to the bench.

And Gaudreau exits stage left, never to return for six weeks.

Flames fans (and, obviously, management) have to be livid about this. Wild fans (and, likely, their players) will cry innocence.

I can see both sides of this. Like I noted, a lot of those “slashes” are common-place whacks that happen countless times in a hockey game. And Gaudreau often hangs around the goalie or in the slot. That’s defensemen territory. In there, referees tend to let a lot of small stuff slide. He knew what he was getting into.

But 21 whacks? And most of them were directly at the hands or wrists, with a ref staring at them. That’s a failing on officiating for not reining in the Wild when they started testing the boundaries early. And the Flames have to deal with the consequences for the bulk of the season.