Minnesota's Ryan Hartman Claps Back at Jets' Cole Perfetti

The Ryan Hartman vs Cole Perfetti battle continues as things are getting complicated and borderline awkward in the media.

Essentially, Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has now denied Winnipeg Jets' forward Cole Perfetti's accusation stating that he admitted to intentionally high-sticking Perfetti, in what was seen as a revenge shot for Kirill Kaprizov getting hurt in the Jets/Wild previous matchup.

Perfetti went on record with the media stating Hartman gave him a heads up that the high-stick was coming and meant no disrespect by the move as it was simply a retaliation shot. The kicker here is the fact the incident was caught on the mic Perfetti was wearing for the game, however the NHL and NHLPA have an agreement in place that they cannot use any on-ice footage to come down on a player or coach.

Hartman has since spoken with the Athletic's Michael Russo and had this to say:

It's written on the wall that he's wearing a mic. I know he's wearing a mic all game. He comes up to me multiple times and asks me if I did it on purpose. And finally, all I told him was, 'I'm not gonna say it wasn't on purpose.' So I didn't tell him, 'Hey, I did that on purpose.' ... That was the extent of it. If everything that was said on the ice was released to the media, there'd be a lot of people in this league in trouble. I don't know, I guess we're in a different day and age where kids talk to people about what's said on the ice. You'd think things would stay on the ice. I talked to multiple Jets players during the third period, and he told everyone. He's acting like, 'I didn't say anything. They made me tell them.' He f-----g told everyone right away. And then to bring it up into the media, whatever. I'm not going to apologize for high-sticking him. I didn't see Dillon apologize for cross-checking Kirill.

The saga continues on Feb.20 when the Wild and Jets once again faceoff. High-stick or not.

Cole Perfetti back on the ice for the Jets after taking a high stick to the face by Ryan Hartman off the faceoff during his first shift. pic.twitter.com/LgD6wmMtwo
— Dave Minuk (@ICdave) December 31, 2023