Kariya Surprised by Suspension

Angelic-faced Paul Kariya, a two-time Lady Byng trophy winner for gentlemanly play and a member of the NHL’s new panel looking into ways to curb injuries, was suspended by the league Saturday. He did not play in the Ducks’ 2-1 exhibition loss to the Phoenix Coyotes and could miss Friday’s season opener against the Minnesota Wild pending a hearing with league officials later this week.

No joke.

Actually, Kariya believes it is a joke that he received a slashing major and a match penalty for a deliberate attempt to injure Minnesota’s Aaron Gavey in a 3-1 exhibition loss Friday against the Wild.

“I can’t believe it was anything more than two minutes,” said Kariya, acknowledging he deserved a slashing minor. “It should never have been a match penalty.”

Kariya said he was skating to the bench late in the game, when Gavey attempted to kick his feet out from under him.

“One of their players tried to slew-foot me,” Kariya explained. “I was off balance. I swung my stick . . . and hit him on the pants. Earlier in the game, the same thing happened. I think it was the same player who tried to slew-foot me along the boards.”

The Ducks searched for the incidents on a videotape of the game, but could find neither. So, it will be Kariya’s word against the word of referee Brian Murphy at the hearing, which will probably be held Monday on a conference call.

Any match penalty for attempting to injure another player is subject to review by the league, which is why Kariya was suspended for Saturday’s exhibition.

Will he get more?

“I certainly hope not,” Kariya said. “The problem was the referee didn’t see what happened originally [when Gavey tried to trip Kariya]. It wasn’t like I broke my stick over the guy. I just chopped at him.”

Kariya seemed at once angry and sheepish about the suspension, his first at any level of play. Fact is, Kariya enters his seventh NHL season with a grand total of 117 penalty minutes.

“It’s ironic,” he admitted. “I’m on the injury committee, the league has decided to crack down on slashing . . .” He trailed off, then continued, “I deserved a minor penalty, but anything more than that is out of left field.”

Coach Craig Hartsburg defended Kariya.

“It’s hard to believe, first of all, the other guy didn’t get a penalty,” Hartsburg said. “He did it twice. Once in the second period and again in the third. The guy tried to kick Paul’s feet out from under him.”

Said Teemu Selanne, picking up the story: “Paul just turned and slashed at his legs. It was nothing. I told the refs, ‘There’s two of you guys and you can’t see that [Gavey’s trip of Kariya]?’ ”

Asked if he believed Kariya would be suspended for the opener, Selanne said, “Oh, no. There’s no way he’s going to be suspended for longer.”

Said Kariya: “Hopefully, it’s just this one game and then I’ll be able to start the season.”

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With Kariya suspended and Selanne, center German Titov and defensemen Niclas Havelid and Oleg Tverdovsky not in the lineup, the Ducks struggled Saturday. Defenseman Patrick Traverse scored the Ducks’ lone goal with 12 seconds left in the game. The Ducks were 3-5 in exhibition play.