Panthers Aaron Ekblad Suspended Two Games For Elbowing Lightning Forward Brandon Hagel

The Florida Panthers have an opportunity to knock their cross-state rival, Tampa Bay Lightning, out of the playoffs on Wednesday night, but they'll have to do it without the services of one of their top blueliners, Aaron Ekblad.

When we saw that the Panthers would be opening their quest for a repeat Stanley Cup against the Lightning, we all knew it would be physical. However, that physicality has towed the line of legality at times with players from both teams delivering massive checks that have led to debates among fans about whether or not they were clean.

Well, in the case of Ekblad's elbow on Brandon Hagel in Game 4, the NHL decided not to leave this up to debate and turned things over to the Department of Player Safety.

The play happened in the second period of Game 4, when Hagel — who was suspended for Game 3 due to a hit he threw on Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov — was on the receiving end of an elbow from Ekblad that sent him to the ice.

Hagel left the game and didn't return.

On Tuesday, the Department of Player Safety announced that Ekblad has been suspended for two games, meaning he will miss Game 5 as well as Game 6 or Game 1 of the next round, depending on the outcome of Wednesday night's game.

While the DOPS can sometimes make some head-scratching calls, this one was reportedly a slam dunk for them thanks to a reverse angle of the play.

Ekblad has one goal and is -3 so far this postseason, but logs a fair amount of ice time, averaging 21:16 through the first four games of the series.

I don't think that this will be an insurmountable loss for the Panthers, but it will present a slightly less experienced Panthers blue line that the Lightning may be able to exploit to get back in this series, which they currently trail 3-1.