NHL suspends Shane Doan

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NEW YORK, March 21 (UPI) -- The NHL announced Wednesday Phoenix captain Shane Doan had been suspended for three games as a result of a hit he delivered Tuesday.

Doan was given a 2-minute minor penalty for elbowing Dallas forward Jamie Benn in the second period of a 4-3 shootout loss to the Stars. League officials decided the punishment should be more substantial.

"As Doan crashes down, he realizes he's beat," Brendan Shanahan, NHL senior vice president of player safety, said in announcing the suspension. "He tries to get a piece of Benn to try and prevent or slow down a potential odd-man rush by Dallas.

"Caught between the puck and the man, Doan instinctively reaches out, catching Benn in the chin with his elbow. While we accept Doan's assertion that the act was not intentional, we feel that Doan's extended elbow in that situation was reckless, and made him responsible for the dangerous head contact that resulted."

Doan was fined last week for a boarding incident and was suspended last season for hitting Anaheim's Dan Sexton in the head. He will lose $166,463 in pay as a result of this suspension.