Former NHL star Sean Avery believes Matt Petgrave deliberately made contact with Adam Johnson in the incident that killed the former Pittsburgh Penguins center on Saturday. But that there was no intention to seriously harm his opponent. Minnesota native Johnson, 29, was playing for the Nottingham Panthers in the English Ice Hockey League when Canadian Petgrave of the Sheffield Steelers hit him in the neck with his skate.
Johnson skated off the ice with blood pouring from his neck and he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. South Yorkshire Police has since started investigating the incident at Utilita Arena, and the English Ice Hockey Association has announced it will make neck guards mandatory in 2024.
Ex-Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers left wing Avery appeared on FOX News to discuss the incident, with anchor Jesse Watters questioning whether Johnson’s death was a “homicide” given the unusual height of Petgrave’s skate.
“That’s a pretty dangerous word to throw around,” Avery replied. “I’ve watched it and it’s terrible, it’s tough to watch. Did this kid make a movement that was very unorthodox, do I think that he was trying to make contact of some sort? Absolutely. Do I think woke up and said ‘I’m going to murder somebody today? No.
“I saw the hit. I’ve got a three-year-old that’s playing hockey and it’s tough. It’s unorthodox, I saw the leg move and it shouldn’t have been where it was, but it’s an unprovable offense. How can you actually prove what the intent was? This is terrible, it’s just awful and I can’t even watch it. I can’t watch the video back.”
Petgrave, 31, was described as “absolutely distraught” about the incident, according to Nottingham Panthers fan Tina Taylor who was speaking outside the team’s Motorpoint Arena home while paying tribute to Johnson. “It was a one-in-a-million chance occurrence and will probably never happen again. It was a complete freak accident,” she added.
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Avery believes Johnson’s death raises questions about the safety of the skates used by elite players. He explained: “I want everybody to be very careful and I want you to understand one thing, the technology in our skates over the last 20 years, it’s incredible. It’s a titanium blade, it’s a thinner blade, it’s much sharper than the blades that we skated on 20 years ago, the traditional steel.
“I think we need to step back and take a look at [it] because there have been two players in the NHL, Taylor Hall, I think he got tendons cut in his wrist, and another kid in Edmonton had his tendon cut in his ankle. You have to look at the blades on these skates.”
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