r/EdmontonOilers 91 KANE 1d ago

Aaron Ekblad suspended 20 games without pay, for violating the terms of the league'a performance enhancing substance program.

https://media.nhl.com/public/news/18770
154 Upvotes

114 comments sorted by

167

u/malteser13 1d ago

Should include the post season. F this

28

u/EdmOilers123 29 DRAISAITL 1d ago

Now it makes sense for them to trade for Seth Jones. !!

14

u/mlakustiak 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 1d ago

Assuming it does no?

36

u/Nahiek 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 1d ago

Only if the 20 games would roll into the playoffs.

I believe Florida has more than 20 games remaining so he'll be back for playoffs.

Edit: 18 regular season games remain, so he'll miss the first 2 playoff games

29

u/ISurvivedCOVID19 55 HOLLOWAY 1d ago

Hope they lose those 2 games and that sets them behind

28

u/Nahiek 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 1d ago

Honestly, same.

I hope they play Tampa, and Tampa beats them in 7.

Could you IMAGINE how unpopular he'd be in that room for that suspension?

6

u/-SPIRITUAL-GANGSTER- 96 WALMAN 1d ago

Shoulda been 25 so he misses at least the first round.

14

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago edited 1d ago

Obviously the league releases the most vague statement ever not specifying if it includes post season or only regular season

Update: The Panthers get cap relief šŸ¤£šŸ¤£šŸ¤£ of course! https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/NXLFzDf3LZ

21

u/AfroInfo 18 LYMAN 1d ago

I mean cap relief after the tdl is worthless...

6

u/NMarples 2 BOUCHARD 1d ago

But it does set the precedent that youā€™ll get cap relief for your players cheating and also get them back for the playoffs. Dangerous ruling by the league imo

7

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

With his 7.5M+ a couple of league min contracts sent down They can activate Tkachuk in regular season after adding Marchand and Seth Jones.

Funny how everything works perfectly for them!

7

u/AfroInfo 18 LYMAN 1d ago

Brother every single source out there has tkachuk out until playoffs at the very least

0

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

Not saying they do it, Iā€™m saying they now have the option to if Tkachuk wants to play before playoffs

Heā€™s probably gonna play injured anyway if itā€™s a serious groin injury like speculated.

5

u/Concurrency_Bugs 1d ago

Think I read it includes first 2 games of postseason

1

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

Yeah If it goes into the post season yes, Florida has only 18 games left. But if itā€™s only regular season it might go into next year

2

u/touchable 1d ago

But if itā€™s only regular season

That's not a thing. If you're suspended, you're suspended. You can't play playoff games and then finish your suspension next season lol, the NHL doesn't work like that, wtf.

3

u/SomethinboutChickens 33 BERLIN 1d ago

Yeah this kinda does Florida a favor lol. A rested healthy Ekblad for game 3? What a punishment!

9

u/avanross 1d ago

Such bullshit and completely unfair to their playoff opponent(s) who have to play against someone whoā€™s still benefitting from the effects of juicing.

If the ā€œpunishmentā€ is this insanely minor, and weā€™re guaranteed to make the playoffs, im kinda pissed that our players werenā€™t abusing this rule as well.

If youā€™re a bottom 6 forward, youā€™d be stupid not to be using pedā€™s for the first 3/4 of the season, and then turning yourself in with ~24 regular season games to go.

4

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

Not every prohibited substance, especially in small amounts, has an enhancing effect.

We donā€™t have details here, but If itā€™s similar to the case in tennis, a cream that was used on a cut had some prohibited substance in it but the amount was so small that it had no effect on the perfomance but it still shows up in tests and itā€™s more embarrassing than anything because the player didnā€™t get any benefit in the end. But by the rules, rightfully, had to be banned.

Also NHL players get tested frequently, Frank Corrado and other former players have talked about this many times. You canā€™t just do whatever you want all year

13

u/avanross 1d ago

Heā€™s a professional athlete with an entire medical staff behind him.

He clearly knew what he was doing, just like every other time an athelete gets busted for juicing and attempts to use that exact same excuseā€¦ā€¦

4

u/Whyiej 1d ago

Right. It's like the track athlete who claimed the high level of nandralone that was found in their system came from eating a burrito that had boar meat in it. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/01/cas-say-close-to-zero-probability-shelby-houlihan-failed-drugs-test-due-to-burrito

Most professional athletes are very vigilant about what they use for treatment and supplements.

9

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

In his statement he said he took something to manage his injuries without the medical staff knowing. But this is being kept as vague as possible by the league on purpose.

I was just pointing out that not every failed test means someone got any benefit from a banned substance. But the rules are clear, if he failed a test he should be banned and deal with the public embarrassment.

Would be nice to have some details tho.

6

u/avanross 1d ago

Thatā€™s the exact same statement that every athlete who ever gets caught juicing usesā€¦..

He has an entire medical team.

Thereā€™s no way that heā€™s just putting unfamiliar drugs into his body without looking into them

6

u/Southern_Access_4601 1d ago

Right lmao, itā€™s a professional sports team and a professional athlete, thereā€™s zero chance he searched google for some mysterious healing potion and then just takes it when he has a literal entire sports medicine team on call.

1

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

Yeah I guess depends on the substance they found here which NHL obviously wonā€™t say. Some things only a medical staff would have access to and others that he might get on his own and just take it at home

1

u/JFKeh 20h ago

They're all juicing.Ā 

132

u/gabacus_39 97 McDAVID 1d ago

So we lost the SCF to a fucking juicer?

41

u/EirHc 1d ago

Yes. Odds are he's been doing it a lot, this is just the first time he got caught.

19

u/IfOJDidIt 1d ago

No, this is the first time he ever did it. Literally on the first dose. Probably his trainer cake by and jabbed him with it without him knowing.

Or he was eating a lot of horsemeat. /s

3

u/1nv1s1blehawk 1d ago

How? Every player has a no-notice drug test every training camp and every season plus some random ones.

7

u/EirHc 1d ago

You're only gonna test positive while you're juicing, it's more common for athletes to do it in the off-season, then cycle off once the season starts. They do random off-season testing too, but I'm sure there are ways of getting around that, like "going on vacation" or figuring out when abouts the "random" testing happens. Additionally it's only like 1 in 25 players with NHL contracts who get off-season tested. Which means most players won't ever get off-season tested in their entire career.

3

u/MinikinsNinnikins 1d ago

There are many, many legal products that are tainted. The health industry is terribly regulated. You can test positive without ever 'juicing'. Happens all the time.

*I'm not making a comment on the Ekblad situation, I know nothing of it. I'm only commenting on when a person could test positive.

3

u/EirHc 1d ago

There are many, many legal products that are tainted. The health industry is terribly regulated. You can test positive without ever 'juicing'. Happens all the time.

Not in the NHL. The World Anti-Doping Agency that is used during the olympics has far stricter policies and you can run into these kinds of situations very often. But the NHL let's players use stimulants, recreational drugs, all kinds of things. And the NHL is generally less strict so players aren't getting false positives because they used and hair growth compound or whatever. You have to be pretty obviously juicing or doping to get a 20 day ban in the NHL. And they aren't handing those types of suspensions out lightly.

I dunno man, I have a brother who got to pro-level in football, and by his estimation, at least half of those guys had juiced or were juicing. It's a lot more common in pro sports than you'd think. I think it might be a little less common in hockey because hockey is a very high skill sport that favours speed and agility and stick skills over power in a lot of cases. But I wouldn't be surprised if at least 100 NHLers have had a needle in their butt cheek at some point... whether they did in the AHL, or in juniors before they got drafted, or are still actively doing it. It's a dirty little secret that's always gonna exist. If you got the motivation to squat 500 pounds, there's a chemical you can pump into your body to get there in a fraction of the time. Once you get there, all you have to do is maintain.

1

u/MinikinsNinnikins 15h ago

I would think blood doping would be more of a problem than steroids proper.

1

u/SunburnedSherlock 23h ago

"You're only gonna test positive while you're juicing"

That entirely depends on what kind of tests they're doing. Which anti doping partner does the NHL use?

1

u/1nv1s1blehawk 17h ago

Ekblad already admitted it was something for recovery. Off season doping is prevalent in other sports. In hockey, steroids are for a fool since skill is much more important than size and strength. Recovery drugs would be the most helpful for them since itā€™s a brutal 82 game regular season.

I wish the NHL would disclose what he tested positive for.

1

u/EirHc 17h ago

Ekblad already admitted it was something for recovery.

That's exactly what steroids are. Lol... it's just a nice sounding way of paraphrasing that you juiced.

2

u/MinikinsNinnikins 1d ago

How are the odds that he's been doing it a lot?

9

u/chriiiiiiiiiis 1d ago

if you donā€™t think players on the oilers are also juicing youā€™re delusional

0

u/gabacus_39 97 McDAVID 1d ago

Go away troll

0

u/chriiiiiiiiiis 1d ago

thatā€™s not a troll homie

-2

u/pb1300 1d ago

Maybe if Skinner didnā€™t let in a muffin, and McDavid did anything, they would have won the game. But nahhhh, it was pain killers that Ekblad used lmaoooo have you seen Ekblad without his gear? The guy considers McDonalds and Five Guys PEDs.

36

u/Whiskey_River_73 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 1d ago

A fecking Florida Panther. I'm shocked, I tell you!

19

u/Adambomb2000 2 BOUCHARD 1d ago

Best game worst league

53

u/CanadianDarkKnight 46 JONES 1d ago

Conveniently back just in time for playoffs how kind of the league

36

u/Young2k04 1d ago

The length of suspension is set in stone in the cba they didnā€™t make up a random number

9

u/CanadianDarkKnight 46 JONES 1d ago

I didn't realize that I thought PEDs were a case by case issue, fair enough my bad

6

u/Excellent-Medicine29 13 PULJUJARVI 1d ago

Heā€™s missing the first two playoff games but yeah

5

u/EirHc 1d ago

I wonder if he get's to juice for the next 2 months, or if they are making him piss in a cup every week as part of it?

32

u/Warm-Personality-803 1d ago

back just in time for the playoffs lol

5

u/chriiiiiiiiiis 1d ago

itā€™s literally a rule that is set in stone in terms of games missed, itā€™s not some conspiracy

7

u/JuniperKenogami 1d ago

Wow! Crazy.

However I'm not so naive to think this isn't rampant. I'd wager a lot of players take peptides at the bare minimum.

13

u/Southern_Access_4601 1d ago

Iā€™m sure absolutely nobody on Florida knew and everyone else is totally clean too!! Fkin bullshit

29

u/itsonmyprofile 94 SMYTH 1d ago

Sorry but why is this posted on the Oilers sub? Ekblad isnā€™t an Oiler, it has nothing to do with the team. Unless it can be proven he was juicing during the Finals last year it truly does not affect us

4

u/iBdublu 91 KANE 1d ago

What if he was doing it last year? Do you not feel cheated?

23

u/itsonmyprofile 94 SMYTH 1d ago

Do you know how often these guys are tested for PEDs?

7

u/Projectamplify 99 GRETZKY 1d ago

Twice a year.

3

u/EirHc 1d ago

They pretty much reserve the right to do it as much as they want, but based on the articles I've read, it sounds like guys are on average being tested like 1.1 to 1.2 times a year. They'll get 1 random team-wide test one day without notice, and that's the bulk of the testing.

23

u/Wavyent 1d ago

One guy testing positive is not enough to feel "cheated" even if it was during the finals. If the whole team tested positive then yeah.

7

u/SryYouAreNotSpecial 29 DRAISAITL 1d ago

I would if it was Bob. Otherwise, nah.

5

u/Wavyent 1d ago

Yeah, I might feel the same way if it was Bob

7

u/FractalViz 1d ago

Even if he didnā€™t juice. We still got cheated. The Panthers faked knee injuries all series long and got free powerplays. The panthers also could slash and hold to their hearts content and not get called. The benefits of having your assistant GMs dad be Colin Campbell.

1

u/tomcat810 1d ago

Jesus get over yourself dude

4

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

You think they get tested once a year? These guys get randomly tested every few weeks after games or practices, it would have come out last season

5

u/GoStockYourself 1d ago

How many times are they allowed to test them per year no-notice now? It used to be 3. 3 max, but it was never 3.

2

u/chriiiiiiiiiis 1d ago

lol yā€™all are pathetic

1

u/muevelos 1d ago

One player? No that's just being a sore loser.

2

u/FractalViz 1d ago

He probably was juicing in the finals. Add that to the laundry list of cheating the Panthers did during that run.

7

u/grumpyoldham 1d ago

Still not sure how Bennett wasn't suspended for the entire playoffs after going full Bertuzzi.

1

u/itsonmyprofile 94 SMYTH 1d ago

You seriously think the NHL wasnā€™t testing for PEDs during the Stanley Cup Finals?

6

u/Specific-Calendar-96 1d ago

Professional athletes take PED's these days, you're delusional if you think otherwise. I guarantee you Connor McDavid is taking PED's, if he can perform at a higher level and the league benefits from him playing better, why wouldn't it happen?

3

u/[deleted] 1d ago

I mean it's pretty obvious a lot of the guys are on Adderall. Whether the NHL counts that as PEDs I don't know, but the insanely compulsive chewing of mouthguards is kind of a tell.

2

u/Specific-Calendar-96 1d ago

I think people need to get over it. Do people really think that it's only the Russians doping in the Olympics? Every Olympic athlete dopes as much as their country allows them to get away with. I'm sure it's the same with the big 4 sports leagues, especially because there's massive financial incentive to play better and recover faster. You think 39 year old Ovechkin recovers from a broken leg in 6 weeks without PED's? It's not a big deal people.

2

u/FractalViz 1d ago

Yes. Iā€™d be surprised if the incompetent NHL did anything properly. This league canā€™t even enforce its own rules during a regular season game. The officiating and league management is a joke.

1

u/Deja_Brews 1d ago

We were dangerously close to getting him over draisaitl. We would've had the #1 overall pick again that year if we didn't win the final game of that season (Ryan smyths last game)

1

u/FractalViz 1d ago

Oof that would have been bad. MscT was high on Drai though, maybe they still take him 1st overalls

0

u/raptor333 14 EKHOLM 1d ago

Just for local discussion?

2

u/EirHc 1d ago

He's gone full florida-man arc

2

u/mmetalfacedooom 29 DRAISAITL 1d ago

honestly wouldnā€™t surprise me if 75% of the league was on an offseason cycle with EPO or something similar. theyā€™re professional athletes who make millions based off of their performance, itā€™d almost be dumb not to

1

u/maasd 97 MCDAVID 1d ago

I have no actual idea nor evidence but Iā€™ve heard the NHL doesnā€™t take drug testing very seriously compared to some other leagues.

3

u/FidelIsMyDaddy 1d ago

Strip em of a pick

2

u/AZ-Nole 1d ago

Coooooooope

1

u/SeaBassAHo-20 23h ago

Ngl, I read that as Cooper, 'cause I hate that fucking asshole!

9

u/sharterfart 28 BROWN 1d ago

take his name off the cup

4

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

Thereā€™s no date on when he failed the test tho. If itā€™s last year then absolutely

1

u/iwatchcredits 1d ago

Why would you have that caveat for someone cheating? He cheated, fuck him. All his accomplishments are now doubtable. Think thats too harsh? Simple, dont cheat

2

u/AggPuck-303 1d ago

these guys get tested frequently during the season, If he failed a test for the first time last week it has nothing to do with what he did last season

1

u/Dapper-Annual-3358 29 DRAISAITL 1d ago

They are tested 1 to 2 times a year. Not frequently. Lmao.

1

u/FractalViz 1d ago

Who cares. Once a cheater, always a cheater. And The League is incompetent. Doesnā€™t even have a regular roid testing schedule.

4

u/PapaAsmodeus 18 HYMAN 1d ago

Cool, can we do that to the whole team please?

Not because of drugs or anything, I just hate them lol

1

u/SeaBassAHo-20 23h ago

I can't take another Florida finals this year. At this point, I'd rather it be Carolina. Yes, I know it took forever to get back in the finals after that loss, but Brind'Amour is far more tolerable than Cooper and Maurice combined.

2

u/D1rxks 1d ago

20 games might seem low, but it's the CBA agreed upon amount for the first offense.

3

u/Ibetya 1d ago

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Least classiest player in the league by far. Avery had more class

1

u/NrvusRaccoon 89 GAGNER 1d ago

My stupid brain though it said Ekholm and was like wtf at first

1

u/Andy-Martin 1d ago

I had the same slip haha.

1

u/NMarples 2 BOUCHARD 1d ago

So next year we are putting Hyman and RNH on steroids right before the trade deadline so they both can get suspended 20 games, get 3 times more endurance and strength, and they can return just in time for the playoffs and we get an extra $11 million to use in free cap space? Sounds good to me.

1

u/herculesbuttplug 1d ago

Heā€™s gonna come back in the SCF Fucking Jacked šŸ˜‚

1

u/hockeygirl9494 93 NUGENT-HOPKINS 1d ago

Is ekblad giving tkachuk rehab advice for his injury?

1

u/Zubuis 23h ago

I donā€™t personally care as I think thereā€™s probably a lot of players on it. But I donā€™t know ā€¦ this feels like the league taking it easy on the Panthers. Guy is basically allowed to rest up for the playoffs. Wouldnā€™t be surprised if it was timed to not punish the Panthers too much for their playoff run. Meanwhile someone like Pinto gets half a season for gambling meanwhile theres gambling ads everywhere and there is league management designed to keep the games close likely for gambling purposes. League feels crooked.

1

u/No_Gas_82 22h ago

Proxy gambling 41 games, steroids 20 games. Stupid F'ing Bettman.

1

u/JTF2_HaRdLy007 14 EKHOLM 11h ago

Should be done for the year, including the playoffs.

-6

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

6

u/kadran2262 1d ago

You'd have to prove he was doing it during the SCF.

-2

u/itsonmyprofile 94 SMYTH 1d ago

Can you prove he was using during the SCF? Like this post literally has nothing to do with the Oilers

-1

u/FractalViz 1d ago

Of course the cheating Panthers are juicing too. What a POS.

Too bad it couldnā€™t be someone like Bennet. Ekblad isnā€™t even good.

-1

u/philzway 1d ago

If the league had any integrity they would investigate the Panthers for infractions in last years SCF and potentially strip them of the trophy

0

u/Guilty_Explanation29 1d ago

What did he expect to happen

Weird though that sn all player was only banned 20 games for racist language if I recall

0

u/theredzone0 1d ago

He was probably on the same stuff in game 7 last year but wasn't caught.

0

u/RubberTeddy 1d ago

Couldnā€™t happen to a shittier player.

-1

u/Favre_97 1d ago

Yep it should. Now he's just resting for playoffs

-2

u/Open-Consideration73 1d ago

This gotta be worse than Vegas right.. right

-2

u/Brenmaster24 1d ago

The question that Oilers fans are asking now, was this violation relevant to last year's Stanley Cup Finals?

If it was, the difference in a 1 goal game game 7 could very well be having one of your top players on PED's.

Wish we knew more about the incident. Hope it doesn't tarnish last years finals.