Soo Greyhounds’ Landon Schiller suspended 10 games for checking to the head (VIDEO)

Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds rookie right wing Landon Schiller found a way to punching another hole on his '10 free fights' card, but it might get him in hot water.

Okay, it's probably a little sensational to paint Schiller's checking to the head game misconduct on Thursday as an unintended consequence of the Ontario Hockey League's first-year rule that limits players to 10 fighting majors before automatic suspensions kick in. That said, if Schiller had thrown off his gloves and challenged the Niagara IceDogs' Mack Lemmon in retaliation for a rough bodycheck earlier on defenceman Chris Buonomo instead of drilling him well away from the play as if it was football on ice, he still would have been ejected from the game. In that hypothetical, though, there would not be another questionable play in the OHL to pore over like it was the Zapruder film, with a suspension possible for the 17-year-old.

(Update: Schiller has been suspended 10 games.)

It all starts at 3:56 in the highlight reel below (which has a couple scoring plays from Ryan Strome for all fans of the Brooklyn New York Islanders). Lemmon took what TV Cogeco Ontario's Steve Clark called "a healthy run" at Buonomo and seemed to be a little gratuitous about dumping the Greyhounds defenceman behind the goal. As play continued in the Greyhounds zone, Schiller (who's had only one fighting major) seemed less intent on where the puck was than avenging the check seconds earlier.

One can partially defend the Oshawa Generals' Scott Laughton, who was ejected for a head shot on Wednesday, by saying he at least checked the last player to touch the puck but ended up making contact with Ottawa 67's winger Daniel Walsh's head. At least Laughton started out with intent to make a hockey play.

It is tough to tell from the replays what part of Lemmon's person was the principal point of contact, but this looked like a cheap shot. The OHL's longest suspension so far this season, a 10-gamer levied to the Sarnia Sting's Craig Hottot, also involved checking someone who did not have the puck. The OHL, however, did not cite that as part of the rationale for the suspension, so who knows how it handles this incident.

Emotions seemed to be running high throughout the game; the IceDogs won 5-1 to drop the Greyhounds (7-7-0-0) back to the .500 mark with their third consecutive loss.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet (video: TV Cogeco Ontario).