Scheifele: Department of Player Safety 'shut me down' vs. Canadiens

Winnipeg Jets pivot Mark Scheifele believes the Department of Player Safety cost him a chance to compete with his teammates during their second-round sweep to the Montreal Canadiens.

"I still believe (the suspension) was excessive," Scheifele told reporters Wednesday. "They knock me out of the series, I don't even get a chance to play with my teammates and battle with my teammates in the series. For a guy with a clean record ... I'm just gonna stop talking before I get fined or something like that so I'll just leave it as it is."

He added that the league did his opponent's job of shutting him down for the series.

"Obviously, it's crushing that my season was ended by that and I wasn't able to play in this series," Scheifele said. "I thought I was going to be tried to be shut down by Phillip Danault, but it was the Department of Player Safety that shut me down. So that definitely sucks."

Scheifele was suspended four games for charging Montreal's Jake Evans at the end of Game 1. Evans suffered a concussion on the play.

The 28-year-old will miss the 2021-22 regular-season opener to serve the remainder of the suspension.

The Department of Player Safety wasn't Scheifele's only target during the press conference, as he also took aim at the Winnipeg media for discounting the team earlier in the year.

"We were written off from Day 1 of the season and we proved people wrong all season long," Scheifele said, according to The Athletic's Murat Ates. "We go through that slide towards the end of the year and we were written off again ... We don't get a lot of respect in the grand scheme of things."

The Jets finished third in the North Division with 63 points before sweeping the Edmonton Oilers in Round 1.