Boulerice waits for suspension

Maring the Flyers 8-2 defeat of the Canucks last night was Jesse Boulerice's cross-check to the jaw of Ryan Kesler as he was coming around the net. Boulerice and Kesler had been going at it pretty good during the game, but the Philly forward lost his cool.



Boulerice will surely face a lengthy suspension by the league. It won't be a particularly great loss of talent for the Flyers, but combined with Steve Downie's recent 20-game ban, this could eat up Philly's $600K cap cushion.

I will give partial credit to Boulerice and coach John Stevens for admitting that it was an f-ed up act.

"I reacted in a bad way - the wrong way."

- Boulerice

"It's unacceptable, it's something that we can't have."

- Stevens

That's in direct contrast to the last stick incident, Chris Simon's two-handed chop to the head of Ryan Hollweg. Here's a gem at the time from Simon's teammate, super turtle Brendan Witt:

"It always looks worse. I saw the guy after the game, he looked fine. That's enough to tell me that it wasn't that bad. You know what I mean?"

Admitting culpability doesn't excuse Boulerice and this isn't his first lapse in judgement. In 1998, he was suspended for a year by the OHL, 15 games by the AHL and faced criminal charges for an axe swing to the face of Guelph Storm's Alex Long during a playoff match.