The NHL Player Safety Department Facing Criticism for Their Severe Ruling on Ryan Reaves

On Saturday night, Ryan Reaves laid a questionable hit on Darnell Nurse which led the Oilers defenseman to crumble to the ice and needed to be helped off.

Reaves was given a major penalty and a game misconduct, with a hearing on further punishment scheduled for Sunday.

Well, Reaves got his "justice" today when the league handed down his five-game suspension.

Fans are incensed too, believing that the league has some vendetta against Toronto, and will often implement extra punishment just based on being the league's most popular and profitable franchise.

It was a harsh overreaction, not because Reaves' hit wasn't questionable but because the NHL seems to hate the Toronto Maple Leafs and want to punish them.

Earlier this season, there were two very dirty hits with one that went basically ignored.

First, about a week or so ago, Los Angeles Kings forward Tanner Jeannot landed a vicious headshot on Canucks star Brock Boeser.

This only led to a three-game suspension for Jeannot, with arguably a much dirtier and intentional hit.

Granted, the league did dole out some punishment but it was not severe enough.

However, the most ridiculous thing was when the league completely ignored Jacob Trouba's headhunting body check on the Canadiens' Justin Barron, lowering his shoulder so he could be flush with the young player's head.

Both of these are worse than Reaves' hit and led to less punishment. Why?

It's understandable that Reaves has a history and perhaps that played a factor, but so does Trouba, so does Jeannot, and so does Tom Wilson; but they tend to get away with a lot more simply because they aren't Toronto.

Toronto has already experienced another bunch of league bias earlier this season when Oliver Ekman-Larsson laid a reverse hit on Tampa Bay's Jake Guentzel that was as innocent as it comes, but the NHL decided to fine OEL $5K for it.

Oh, that's also the same punishment they gave Trouba for his nonsense if that's not enough.

The NHL can continually try to pull the rug over Maple Leafs fans' eyes, but instead of carpet, they're using cling wrap. People can see right through the NHL and their bias against the Maple Leafs.

The evidence was already there, but this is getting to the point of intentional sabotage at the hands of Gary Bettman.