Alexander Kerfoot has been suspended for two games and will miss the Wednesday game in Detroit and the Friday game in Buffalo. He will be eligible to play on Saturday.

The video explanation:

My personal opinion: Boarding of this nature should more often be assessed a five-minute major than it is. There should be suspensions for hits like this that have a potential to cause serious injury. I don’t disagree with a word of the video explanation.

The problem here is that Robert Bortuzzo got a four-game suspension for a play that was simply an attack on a player followed by a second attack while he was on the ice.

It’s impossible to take seriously the credibility of the NHL on this issue when they discuss the finer points of their decision with that situation, and the many more like it, sitting there attesting to the fact that Player Safety has returned to the days of token punishments with no intent on their part to protect anyone’s safety.

All we’ve learned from them this last few weeks is spitting is an outrage, sucker punches just are a thing that you should expect in the NHL and attacking someone on the ice is not really a big deal, but we will parse out the finer points of how you boarded a guy. That we’ll really dig into.

Update: to clarify the status of Erik Johnson, he is day-to-day according to Avalanche coach Jared Bednar, and they did call up Calle Rosen, but it doesn’t really seem all that likely he doesn’t play their next game.