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No hearing scheduled for Cleary elbow; Hannan, McLellan won’t be suspended or fined

Screen Shot 2014-01-09 at 10.45.53 PM

Doesn’t appear there will be any repercussions from an incident at the end of San Jose’s 4-1 win over Detroit on Thursday.

Dan Cleary has no hearing scheduled for an elbow to the head of Scott Hannan, an NHL spokesman confirmed. What’s more, neither Hannan nor Sharks head coach Todd McLellan will receive fines/suspensions for an instigator penalty being called in the final five minutes of the game (as per NHL rule 46.22)

Here’s the incident in question:

According to the NHL, the instigator penalty will be on Hannan’s record going forward, but the reason for no fine or suspension is that -- after being reviewed by the league -- the incident was determined not to have violated the spirit of the instigator rule.

This is in accordance with 46.22, which reads:

A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five (5) minutes of regulation time or at anytime in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident.

When the one-game suspension is imposed, the Coach shall be fined $10,000 – a fine that will double for each subsequent incident.

The suspension shall be served unless, upon review of the incident, the Director of Hockey Operations, at his discretion, deems the incident is not related to the score, previous incidents in the game or prior games, retaliatory in nature, “message sending”, etc. The length of suspension will double for each subsequent offense. This suspension shall be served in addition to any other automatic suspensions a player may incur for an accumulation of three or more instigator penalties.

No team appeals will be permitted either verbally or in writing regarding the assessment of this automatic suspension as all incidents are reviewed by the Director of Hockey Operations as outlined above.

Hannan, reacting to the Cleary elbow, was given the instigator, a five-minute fighting major and game misconduct with 1:53 remaining. Cleary was given a roughing minor and a fighting major.