Eberle awaits his fate

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The Regina Pats went to bed Saturday night hoping to avoid their worst nightmare.

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The WHL club is expected to learn today whether leading scorer Jordan Eberle will be suspended after he received a five-minute boarding penalty and a game misconduct during Saturday's 5-3 playoff loss to the visiting Swift Current Broncos.

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The hit is subject to an automatic league review because it resulted in a major penalty. Broncos defenceman Jesse Dudas is believed to have suffered a broken wrist on the play.

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"It's an unfortunate situation but we'll have to see how they view it," said Pats GM Brent Parker, who watched a replay of the incident after the game. "It's unfortunate that their player got hurt. It's odd. You've got a guy who's 230 pounds and another guy who's 160. Almost as much as anything when (Eberle) hit him they kind of got tangled up and they both went into the boards funny. But, hey, there's nothing that can be done about it now. We'll leave it in the league's hands. We have our opinion on the situation and we'll express that to the league and go from there."

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Eberle's case for leniency may be damaged by the fact that Dudas was seriously injured and is presumably done for the rest of the series.

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Eberle, who is not a physical player, expressed regret about the injury and was quick to emphasize that there was no malicious intent. As Eberle saw it, he was simply trying to finish a check and — with the play developing in a split second — he accidentally caught Dudas in a vulnerable position.

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"It's tough to say (how it happened)," said Eberle, who received the Pats' most-sportsmanlike-player award this season after picking up just 20 penalty minutes in 70 games. "(Dudas) played the puck and I just went to make the hit. You never want that to happen but in the heat of the moment stuff like that happens."

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Eberle is Regina's only pure scorer, having accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the team's offence during the regular season with 42 goals in 70 games. Defenceman Logan Pyett was the team's No. 2 scorer with 20 goals.

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Eberle also leads the team in playoff scoring with one goal and two assists in two games. Given the obvious weight of his contribution, the WHL's ruling could have major repercussions on the best-of-seven series, which is now tied 1-1. Regina will need at least a split of the next two games in Swift Current — Game 3 is Tuesday, followed by Game 4 on Wednesday — in order to reclaim home-ice advantage.

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"Obviously that's in the back of your mind, you don't want to miss any games," said Eberle. "We can't afford to lose another forward. I guess we'll take it day by day and see what happens."

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The Pats were already missing veteran winger Brett Leffler, who gave Broncos defenceman Michael Wilson a reported concussion with his hit on the first shift of Game 1. The length of Leffler's suspension is expected to be announced today, along with the fate of Eberle.

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"We don't anticipate Leff getting any more than the game they gave him," said Parker. "We'll have to see how they view the Eberle hit. Quite obviously he's not a player with a reputation of that or any past history. I don't believe either incident, Brett's or this one for sure, was a vicious intent-to-injure type play like (the Broncos) are portraying them to be. There were some (other) things that happened in the game . . . (like) a kneeing penalty to (Zack Smith) on J.D. Watt that when you watch it on video there's no question there's intent to injure. We're fortunate that our guy wasn't hurt worse than he is. I think you have to be careful that we're not penalizing injuries, we're penalizing infractions."