Frank Nazar hit on Bo Horvat draws major, maybe more

The game was over. Horvat had just buried the empty-netter at 18:28 of the 3rd to make it 4-1, and then everything went sideways.

Andrew Gross

@AGrossNewsday

That's an empty-net goal, 4-1 #Isles at 18:28 of the third and then Pageau and Bertuzzi get into it. Byram is pushing with Horvat, Schaefer is tied up. Stanley just headed to the Isles room, done for night. Nazar with a nasty shoulder check on Horvat at the start.

That last line is the one that matters. In the middle of a pileup with Pageau and Bertuzzi going at it and bodies shoving everywhere, the hit that started it was Nazar's shoulder on Horvat. The officials agreed it was bad, and when the dust settled the box was full.

Andrew Gross

@AGrossNewsday

Bertuzzi gets a 10-minute misconduct and Nazar five-minute major for illegal check to the head. Stanley a 10-minute misconduct as well. #Isles up 4-1 and will finish the game on the PP as they even their record at 2-2-0. Chicago will fall to 1-4-0.

So Nazar gets 5 for an illegal check to the head, Bertuzzi and Stanley get 10-minute misconducts, and the Islanders get to run out the clock on the power play. Even that didn't calm things down. With 13.1 seconds left, Heineman and Duclair were in the middle of another scrap at the Chicago crease, which tells you how the Isles bench felt about the hit on their captain-level guy.

Then the question became whether the league wants a word. The Sun-Times Blackhawks beat writer flagged the replay right away, and once a hit gets called a major for contact to the head, the Department of Player Safety taking a look is pretty standard.

Ben Pope

@BenPopeCST

Frank Nazar might face some discipline for this hit: t.co/6oIH1LW2br

The Islanders sure think it was over the line. Heineman didn't sugarcoat it after the game.

Ethan Sears

@ethan_sears

Emil Heineman called Nazar’s hit on Bo Horvat a “cheap shot”

There's some irony here for Chicago. Nazar has been on the other end of these. Back in December 2024, Calgary's Martin Pospisil drilled him into the boards in the same game Pospisil clipped Connor Bedard in the head, and neither hit drew a penalty. That night set off a whole Chicago debate about the NHL going soft on head shots. Now it's the Blackhawks' young forward waiting to find out if the league comes down on him.

The result evens the Islanders at 2-2-0 and drops Chicago to 1-4-0, so the Hawks already have bigger problems than one ugly sequence. Still, losing Nazar to a suspension would hurt a team that's already sputtering. Keep an eye out for any Player Safety announcement and for how Horvat looks at Islanders practice. Nobody has said anything about his status yet.