TAMPA, Fla. – Brandon Hagel was assessed a five-minute major and suspended one game after his hit against Aleksander Barkov midway through the third period of Game 2 of the Lightning’s first-round series against the Panthers, who won in five. Barkov missed the rest of the period and returned for Game 3.
During end-of-season interviews Friday morning at Amalie Arena, Hagel said he would have dropped the gloves, gone at it in stand-up fashion and gotten on with the rest of the series. That opportunity never came. Instead, with nine minutes remaining in the second period of Game 4, he absorbed a blow to the head from Panthers’ defenseman Aaron Ekblad. The hit, along the boards to the left of Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, did not result in a penalty, but ended the concussed Hagel’s season. Ekblad received a two-game suspension.
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“It sucked because I could have played with a broken arm, I could have played with a bad knee, I could have played with a bad foot, you go down the list,” said the 26-year-old forward. “But you only have one brain.”
The 2024-25 Tampa Bay Lightning were a deep club, but there was only one Brandon Hagel. Frankly, there may not have been a better 200-foot player in the NHL this season. Want proof? How about 35 goals without one of them on the man advantage, and with three shorthanded? He was a plus-33, tied for eighth in the league.
“I think hockey is the best sport in the entire world,” he said. “The way it is played, the honesty and the respect for a lot of the players. It is as competitive as it gets on the ice. At the end of the day, you have respect and you have those unwritten rules. I am a pretty honest player and I would have answered the bell if he would have said, ‘Let’s fight.’ I don’t care if I would have gotten my ass kicked. I would have responded to a situation that I understood.”
Hagel had just cleared the puck out of his zone when the on-charging Ekblad delivered a shot with his right forearm and elbow.
“One of their top players did not have a need to do it that egregiously with him not touching the puck,” said Hagel. “In my opinion, if he touched the puck, I think it is as clean a hit as it gets.”
Alas, that was not the case and Hagel’s outstanding season ended prematurely by a hit that will not soon be forgotten at 401 Channelside Drive.
“If you are going for someone’s head, something’s coming for you,” he said.
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