News broke a couple hours ago that Aaron Ekblad has been suspended 20 games for violating the NHL’s rule on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Per the league:

“Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad has been suspended for 20 games, without pay, for violating the terms of the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program.

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the suspension is accompanied by mandatory referral to the NHL/NHLPA Program for Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health for evaluation and possible treatment.

The National Hockey League will have no further comment on this matter.”

Ekblad released a statement regarding the situation:

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This is a wild one for me. I definitely did not have this on my bingo card.

These situations are always shrouded in a lot of mystery, regardless of which league they occur in. But two things are typically certain:

1. We never know what the PED substance in question is (until later, if at all)

2. The athlete almost always says they didn’t realize the substance contained, or was on the league’s banned list

I like Ekblad. This is disappointing. Many Cats fans are feeling the same way. It puts a damper on his performance this season, and could cloud his career going forward.

The Cats have 18 regular season games left. So, this means Ekblad will miss the remainder of the regular season and the first two playoff games.

Who takes his spot as Forsling’s partner on that top pairing? Guess it was fortuitous that they traded for Seth Jones…

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