Charlie Coyle on Duncan Keith's match penalty: 'You don't expect that, ever, in a game'

Charlie Coyle's nose is not broken. Swollen? Yes. Sporting a couple stitches? Yes. And he has a bit of a shiner, which Wild coach John Torchetti suggested might make him look better.

"That's what we want," Torchetti joked. "When we took this team over we weren't pretty enough.''

At 9:27 of the first period of the Wild's victory over Chicago at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday, after Coyle had checked him to the ice on his back, Chicago defenseman Duncan Keith swung his stick, hitting the Wild forward on the nose just below his left eye. Coyle skated to the bench with blood dripping down his face. Keith was assessed a match penalty for intent to injure, which comes with an ejection and an automatic suspension pending a league review before the Hawks play again, which is Friday.

"I was stunned that it happened," Coyle said. "You don't expect that, ever, in a game.''

News broke this afternoon that Keith has been offered an in-person hearing with the NHL's department of player safety. That means a suspension that could be six or more games. And Keith's past could hurt him here. He was suspended five games in 2012 for elbowing Vancouver's Daniel Sedin. In the 2013 Western Conference finals he was suspended a game for a retaliatory high stick on Los Angeles' Jeff Carter.

Keith is not technically a repeat offender since his last suspension was more than 18 months ago. But that affects how much salary he might forfeit, not the length of the suspension. Chicago has only five regular season games left, so this suspension could including missed playoff games.

Clearly, Coyle said, there is no place for things like that in a game. "There shouldn't be,'' he said. ''No matter what happens in a game. You shouldn't swing your stick at someone's face like that. That goes from when you were a Mite. Keep your stick on the ice, right? So obviously there is no room for that. And I'm sure he wants to take it back. Heat of the moment thing. That's how it happened.''

Torchetti wouldn't comment on the hit itself. "We'll let the league decide that,'' he said. But he did offer an opinion about how good Coyle looked with the shiner. "Yeah, sure, playoff-hockey type [thing] there," he said.

Meanwhile, winger David Jones missed practice after missing Tuesday's game due to illness.