Former Leaf Nick Ritchie nailed with lengthy suspension

The 28-year-old has gotten himself into some trouble after showing some serious disregard for a player's safety this week.

Ritchie was in a battle with TPS Turku's Markus Nurmi in the corner, eventually grabbing Nurmi's neck and pushing him down to the ice. Ritchie would deliver multiple unanswered gloved punches to Nurmi, who did not engage and was not an imminent threat to Ritchue, as was not a willing combatant, not even defending himself. Eventually the refs broke it up the one-sided beatdown. Ritchie was given a major and game misconduct for roughing.

The play received a lot of heat and while many viewed Ritchie's actions as having crossed a line, I'm sure that not many could have predicted the punishment he'd receive as a result. Today, it was announced that Ritchie will be suspended for eight games for his actions.

Ritche has played 10 games for Karpat scoring 1 goal, 5 points and racking up a whopping 70 penalty minutes. Unfortunately, he'll be sitting until well into January as a result of his actions.