Major announcement regarding Morgan Rielly's suspension appeal

After Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly went after Ottawa Senators' forward Ridly Greig for his antics at the end of their game on Saturday night, the NHL seemingly took a little longer than usual when it came to announcing Rielly's impending suspension.

Rielly was offered an in-person hearing and when the NHL goes to that length, you're going to be handed a 5-game suspension at minimum. The ruling finally came and the hammer was dropped shortly before the Maple Leafs dropped the puck against the St. Louis Blues with Rielly expected to be out for the next 5 games.

As is the case for a lot of the lengthier suspensions, Rielly filed an appeal over his 5-game ban to the commissioner of the NHL, Gary Bettman, yesterday. The NHL was steadfast in their response and announced that the appeal would take place on the 16th of February and would be conducted in-person.

Darren Dreger added to Chris Johnston's prior tweet by stating that Rielly's agent in J.P Barry, Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving, and NHLPA lawyers would be present to form their case.


The reason behind this is because they all want to know how the Department of Player Safety came to their conclusion since similar plays in recent memory went unpunished or were given a far lesser suspension. On top of the fact that Rielly has never been suspended before, he has a clean record, and has been in the league for 10+ seasons.

Rielly has already served one game of his suspension with the Leafs handedly defeating the Blues by a score of 4-1. Tonight's game against Philadelphia will be the 2nd of 5 - unless the appeal works in their favour and the number of games drops.