Stephane Veilleux and Curt Gogol Suspended 2 Games Each

Both Stephane Veilleux and Curt Gogol have been suspended for two games for boarding and charging, respectively, in a decision coming down from the AHL today. The incidents both occurred in Tuesday’s 6-1 loss the Rockford IceHogs.

The Iowa Wild suffered a 6-1 defeat it what was a bit of a rough game that featured a deluge of penalties, as well as two one-game suspensions resulting for the IceHogs. Rockford center Cody Bass and Rockford IceHogs head coach Ted Dent were the recipients of those suspensions.

Four suspensions may seem like a lot coming out of a single game, unless you happened to catch this one.

Gogol started early getting into a fight with Rockford’s Pierre-Cedric Labrie. Kurtis Gabriel followed that up by getting into a fight with Cody Bass, both players also received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Early in the third Gogol had the charging infraction for which he got suspended. He got a major and a game misconduct for charging, then the hit resulted in a fight with Zach Miskovic, meaning that Gogol, on top of getting a game misconduct for the hit, would have gotten ejected anyhow because it was his third major of the game. Rockford added to the penalties after that hit with Bass getting another unsportsmanlike conduct, the team getting a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct, and Ryan Hartman got ten minutes for abuse of officials.

That was followed shortly by Rockford’s Garret Ross getting a hooking minor that Brett Bulmer didn’t care for, so he evened things out by taking an unsportsmanlike conduct himself.

At the buzzer, despite having shamed the Wild on the scoreboard, Rockford wasn’t too happy about how the game had gone. Ryan Schnell grabbed a ten minute unsportsmanlike conduct and head coach Ted Dent took another ten for abuse of officials, the infraction that led to him sitting out of tonight’s IceHogs tilt.

All-in-all Rockford finished with 69 minutes in penalties and two suspensions. The Wild tallied 46 penalty minutes and two suspensions. It was an ugly game, especially from the Wild’s perspective.

The bright side, maybe, if you’re really digging for one? The absence of an enforcer type like Gogol and a leader like Veilleux means an opportunity for some of the younger players to step up, get some more ice time, assert themselves as physical and capable without the penalties, and shoulder a little of the leadership responsibility.

Also, the lone Wild tally was rookie Christian Folin‘s first professional goal.