Daily Faceoff Live: Was Alex Edler’s hit on Connor McDavid dirty?

On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Steven Ellis kicked things off by weighing in on the biggest debate in the hockey world right now: was Alex Edler’s hit on Connor McDavid clean?

The veteran Los Angeles Kings defenseman delivered what appeared to be a knee-on-knee check against the Edmonton Oilers forward in the second period of Wednesday’s game at Rogers Place.

slow motion look at alex edler's knee on connor mcdavid. pic.twitter.com/oo2lc1DbmW

— zach (@zjlaing) November 17, 2022

Seravalli posted a tweet before Thursday’s show indicating the NHL Department of Player Safety is unlikely to deliver any supplemental discipline against Edler for the collision.

Here’s what Seravalli and Ellis had to say about the incident on Daily Faceoff Live:

Steven Ellis: It’s hard to give Edler the benefit of the doubt because he’s done this before. We saw him do it against Zach Hyman when he was with the Leafs, we saw him doing it to Eric Staal at the World Championship in 2013. This is not unprecedented for him. In this situation, I don’t think this was targeted. I don’t think he was going out there to be dirty. I think it was just kind of a bad situation of McDavid trying to evade the hit and he gets knee-on-knee’d, because, you look at Edler, he didn’t really change course. He just kept going and just ended up having that impact that it did. I’m OK with there not being extra discipline. […]

Frank Seravalli: And I am, too. You heard Zach Hyman, he absolutely crushed Alex Edler at his intermission hit basically saying exactly what you did, that this guy’s lost the benefit of the doubt. We just played the clip of Edler blowing up Hyman, I believe this was from last season if I’m not mistaken. Certainly understand where [Hyman is] coming from, but what clinched it for me — and I do not believe there should be any discipline coming — is the reverse angle of the hit. When you take a look at it from this view, you look at how far Edler has to travel, starting now, and he never changes his posture. He never changes his stance. He already went in with a wide stance. […] It was an awkward play in tight space, it’s not like McDavid was revving through the neutral zone and he just stuck his leg out to try and [prevent] him from getting past and getting a scoring chance. This was, I believe, an ugly and unfortunate play.

Watch the full episode here: