Seattle's Evan Wardley delivers brutal hit to Portland's Nic Petan (VIDEO)

Montreal Canadiens prospect Evan Wardley has developed a reputation as being one of the biggest hitters in the WHL during his career with the Seattle Thunderbirds, and the overager unleashed a brutal check to the head on Winnipeg Jets prospect and current Portland Winterhawk Nic Petan during with 3:33 remaining in the first period of Saturday's Seattle-Portland game.

As you can see from the video below, Petan was sprawled out on the ice after the hit, and stayed down for several minutes before skating off the ice without assistance. Petan didn't return to the game, and his status isn't known at this time. Seattle ended up winning the game 3-2 in a shootout, as the Winterhawks fell to 1-7-0-2 under new coach and GM Jamie Kompon. Portland doesn't play until Friday in Moose Jaw, giving the team a few days to assess the injury to Petan.

Here's Saturday's hit:

Wardley was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for checking to the head, and could be facing a lengthy suspension. He was suspended four games last season for this hit on Portland's Adam De Champlain.

Saturday's actions by Wardley reminded fans of both teams of a hit last December by Portland's Brendan Leipsic on Seattle's Keegan Kolesar, which resulted in Leipsic being suspended for seven games. Given that the 6-foot-3, 218-pound Wardley is a repeat offender (as Leipsic was at the time), he could be looking at a ban at least that long, depending on the severity of the injury to the 5-foot-9, 175-pound Petan, who has put up 233 points in the last two seasons.

The WHL seemed to indicate it would be taking a less forgiving approach to illegal hits when it suspended Victoria's Brandon Magee 12 games for hits on Leipsic and Petan during last season's playoffs, so it will be interesting to see if the league makes an example of Wardley with the season less than a month old.