Claude Julien unhappy with Gudbranson's hit on Evans; league makes ruling

There are a lot of unhappy people in the Habs camp after Erik Gudbranson's hit that appeared to be high on Montreal's Jake Evans Saturday night and you can include head coach Claude Julien among them. In the third period of the Canadiens 2-1 win over the Senators, Gudbranson nailed Evans with a hit that appeared to catch him right in the chin.

👀 Gudbranson hit on Evans
🎥 @TSN_Sports pic.twitter.com/hu1CDz7vai— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) February 6, 2021

Another angle of the Gudbranson hit on Evans.
🎥 @TSN_Sports pic.twitter.com/DbSWtqeHnG— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) February 6, 2021

There was no call on the play and Sportsnet reporter Chris Johnston has already stated that there will be no supplementary discipline as the league feels the hit was clean. Gudbranson agrees with that assessment.

"I thought it was clean hit; for me as a bigger body...I really tried to get low as I possibly could to go through his sternum... you'll notice if I'm throwing a hit & I don't think it's right, I'll bail out of it," said Gudbranson.

"I thought I got him in the body first; it's a big hit, I can understand why they are upset," Gudbranson added.

Julien does not agree with Gudbranson.

"The way we saw it was shoulder to head but there was no call," said Julien, adding the league needs to do more to stop these kinds of hits.

Montreal has now had three incidents of its players appearing to get hit in the head with no calls. The previous two would be Joel Armia and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Evans did leave the game for a while but came back to finish it off.

"You can see it's a shoulder to the head of Evans, but I don't know if they're going to find a reason to determine that the contact was inevitable," Julien added

#Sens Erik Gudbranson on his hit on #Habs Jake Evans: «I thought it was clean hit; for me as a bigger body...I really tried to get low as I possibly could to go through his sternum... you'll notice if I'm throwing a hit & I don't think it's right, I'll bail out of it... "— Priyanta Emrith (@HabsInHighHeels) February 7, 2021

#Sens Erik Gudbranson on his hit to #Habs Jake Evans: "I thought I got him in the body first; it's a big hit, I can understand why they [#Canadiens] are upset"— Priyanta Emrith (@HabsInHighHeels) February 7, 2021

#Habs Julien, in response to Gudbrandson on Evans, says head hits have to be looked upon across the league, not just Montreal's 3 incidents (Armia, Kotkaniemi, Evans). "The way we saw it was shoulder to head but there was no call.— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) February 6, 2021

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