The longest suspensions in NHL history

Whoa. Who saw that coming? As Shane Pinto’s contract saga with the Ottawa Senators dragged into October, the common assumption was that he and the team had a deal in place but he couldn’t sign it because the Senators had no cap space.

The circumstances turned out to be infinitely more complicated, as the news broke Thursday that Pinto has been suspended 41 games by the NHL for activities related to sports wagering. It marked the first time an NHL player had been suspended for gambling since the late 1940s.

When Evander Kane was investigated in 2021 for gambling (and eventually cleared of any wrongdoing), the process played out in the summer and didn’t have any bearing on his playing status for the next season. That obviously isn’t the case for Pinto, whose 41-game ban is one of the longest ever handed out to a player. Where does it rank all-time in its magnitude?

Here are the longest suspensions in NHL history.

T-1. Billy Coutu – Life (1927)

The stout Boston Bruins blueliner is the only player ever to receive a lifetime ban from the NHL. In 1927, following Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final, in which the Bruins fell to the Ottawa Senators, Coutu assaulted referee Jerry Laflamme, reportedly after Bruins coach Art Ross grabbed Laflamme in the hallway to impede his path. Coutu also tackled referee Billy Bell. All that after Coutu had also incited a bench-clearing brawl during the game. Coutu was cleared to play in the AHL after two years. His lifetime NHL ban was removed by 1929-30 and he was actually reinstated by 1932-33, but he was in the twilight of his playing days by then and never made it back to the NHL.

T-1. Don Gallinger, Billy Taylor & Babe Pratt – Life (1948)

It was 75 years ago when the NHL first cracked down on gambling after several Boston Bruins players were exposed for betting on their own team. Gallinger, Taylor and Pratt received lifetime bans for their involvement. Pratt’s was lifted after only nine games when he fully confessed to what he had done, whereas Gallinger’s and Taylor’s stood until they were lifted in 1970.

3. Slava Voynov – Indefinitely (2014)

Voynov, who manned the point on the Los Angeles Kings’ 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup teams, was suspended indefinitely in October 2014 after he was arrested on misdemeanor domestic assault charges against his wife Marta Varlamova. He missed 76 games while under investigation and pleaded no contest to a reduced sentence of 90 days in jail in July 2015 and received three years’ probation. The Kings terminated his contract later that year. Voynov has played in the KHL ever since. The NHL extended his suspension indefinitely for the 2019-20 season and has not reinstated him.

T-4. Shane Pinto – 41 games (2023)

Rick Tocchet took a two-year leave of absence from 2006 to 2008 for his involvement in gambling, but no one in the NHL’s modern era has received a gambling penalty anything like what Pinto got from the NHL on Thursday. The suspension is retroactive to the start of the season, meaning he can return as early as Jan. 21, 2024, assuming he signs a contract by then as a restricted free agent. The NHL found no evidence that Pinto wagered on games, but the league’s integrity services provider learned that he was connected to a third-party bettor.

T-4. Raffi Torres – 41 games (2015)

Torres, a known headhunter, had already repeatedly drawn the ire of the NHL Department of Player Safety by the time he caught the Anaheim Ducks’ Jakob Silfverberg with a predatory blow in October 2015. Torres had previously received supplemental discipline a whopping nine times by that point, including a 21-game ban for a headshot on the Chicago Blackhawks’ Marian Hossa in 2012. Because the league saw no evidence of Torres correcting a specific behavior, it came down on him hard with the half-season penalty.

5. Todd Bertuzzi – 33 games (2004)

Bertuzzi’s ban is actually the NHL’s fourth-longest if judged by time served rather than games missed. Because the 2004-05 season was lost to a lockout, he went 17 months between NHL games after his infamous attack broke Steve Moore’s neck in March 2004 when Bertuzzi’s Vancouver Canucks faced Moore’s Colorado Avalanche. Bertuzzi’s actual sentence amounted to 20 regular-season games and 13 playoff games by the time NHL commissioner Gary Bettman reinstated him in August 2005.

6. Chris Simon – 30 games (2007)

Not only was the New York Islanders’ Simon one of the most violent players of his era, he got creative with it. His worst offense came when he took Pittsburgh Penguins agitator Jarkko Ruutu down and stomped on Ruutu’s leg with his skate. Simon agreed to seek counselling after the incident.

7. Auston Watson – 27 games (2018)

Watson, a rugged checking forward who was a Nashville Predator at the time, was arrested for domestic assault in June 2018. The NHL suspended him 27 games for violating the CBA’s rules for off-ice conduct. He appealed the ban and got it reduced to 18 games. Watson entered the NHL/NHLPA’s stage 2 program for substance abuse in 2019.

8. Chris Simon – 25 games (2007)

One reason the NHL handed out the aforementioned 30-game stomping ban: just months earlier, Simon had completed his 25-game ban for another attack. In this case, the weapon of choice was his stick, which he swung, two-handed, into the face of the New York Rangers’ Ryan Hollweg.

9. Jesse Boulerice – 25 games (2007)

Early in the 2007-08 season, the Philadelphia Flyers’ Boulerice delivered a heinous cross-check directly to the head and under the helmet of Vancouver Canucks center Ryan Kesler. Somehow, Kesler escaped without being seriously hurt. Had he been, Boulerice’s ban would’ve been even longer.

T-10. Marty McSorley – 23 games (2000)

The image of McSorley stalking enforcer Donald Brashear and baseball-swinging his stick into the back of Brashear’s head from behind, and Brashear crashing lifeless to the ice, hitting his head again, isn’t one we’ll soon forget. It earned McSorley an assault conviction. His suspension was expanded to one year from the time of the incident, but he never signed another contract to play in the NHL again, so it technically cost him the final 23 games of his career.

T-10. Gordie Dwyer – 23 games (2000)

During a pre-season game, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Dwyer got into a fight with the Washington Capitals’ Joe Reekie and Joe Murphy, during which Dwyer made forceful contract with referee David Brisebois. After being taken to the penalty box, Dwyer broke free to fight Reekie again and took down referee Mark Faucette in the process. Dwyer received two 10-game automatic suspensions, one for physical abuse of officials and one for leaving the penalty box, plus a three-game automatic suspension for three game misconduct penalties.

Dishonorable Mention: Dan Maloney – 2 years (1975)

Maloney was a devastatingly tough winger who blended an enforcer’s fists with underrated scoring touch, scoring at least 15 goals in eight different seasons. But his rugged play went too far on Nov. 4, 1975 during a skirmish with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Brian Glennie. Maloney used a from-behind punch, which was known to be among the hardest in the sport, to drop Glennie, after which Maloney held him down and bashed his head off the ice multiple times. Maloney was charged with assault to cause bodily harm and was banned from playing in Toronto for two years but was allowed to continue his NHL career playing in other cities. He was back in action three days after the attack, believe it or not, playing at the Montreal Forum against the Canadiens.

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