{"id":35056,"date":"2018-09-02T17:12:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T21:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=35056"},"modified":"2018-09-03T07:47:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T11:47:43","slug":"nate-schmidt-suspended-for-performance-enhancing-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/09\/02\/nate-schmidt-suspended-for-performance-enhancing-drugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Nate Schmidt Suspended For Performance-Enhancing Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL has suspended <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schmina01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nate Schmidt<\/a><\/strong> for 20 games without pay. The league says the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/knights\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> defenseman violated the rules regarding performance-enhancing drugs. Schmidt is not able to play in any pre-season games but can attend training camp.<\/p>\n<h1><strong>Nate Schmidt Violates Performance-Enhancing Drugs Rules<\/strong><\/h1>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Nate Schmidt suspended 20 games for violating the NHL&#39;s performance enhancing drug program. In a statement, the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoldenKnights?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@GoldenKnights<\/a> say they &quot;strongly disagree&quot; with the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1036284098598207489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 2, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Schmidt set career highs in almost every stat last season. Schmidt was taken from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/nhl-teams\/capitals\/\" target=\"_self\">Washington Capitals<\/a> in the 2017 Expansion Draft. He played 76 games for the Golden Knights last season. In those, he scored five goals and totaled 36 points. This trumped his\u00a0previous mark of 17, which he set in the 2015-16 season with Washington. He also contributed seven points in the playoff-run, again a career-high.<\/p>\n<p>The Golden Knights didn&#8217;t quietly accept the loss of one of their top defensemen. They <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SinBinVegas\/status\/1036285355303948288\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">released a statement<\/a> saying, &#8220;we firmly believe that the presence of a trace of the banned substance was accidental and unintentional&#8230; we believe it is clear Nate was not able to reasonably ascertain how the substance entered his body.&#8221; They also site Schmidt&#8217;s honest demeanor and say they will stand by and support him at this time.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt&#8217;s statement was equally as upset. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1036285938001895425\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">He said<\/a>, &#8220;I have only used supplements provided by my NHL team.&#8221; He goes on to say he has been tested multiple times, including twice last season, and has always come up clean. He says the amount of the Performance-Enhancing drug was equal to seven billionths of a milligram. The environmental\u00a0doctor that testified at his appeal said it was the equivalent of throwing a grain of salt into an Olympic-sized pool. According to the doctor, Schmidt could not have prevented the substance from getting into his body.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/engelde01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deryk Engelland<\/a><\/strong> is most likely to get a promotion in Schmidt&#8217;s absence. Engelland scored 23 points in 79 games last season, also setting a career-high in that aspect.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"QOeBt4c2SxJqFbBnaxrXjA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/969617430\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'QOeBt4c2SxJqFbBnaxrXjA',sig:'R1uYq-6soJqLYPMzK35JjDRJWwkYfS64YlX3CsLAHkM=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'969617430',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL has suspended Nate Schmidt for 20 games without pay. The league says the Vegas Golden Knights defenseman violated the rules regarding performance-enhancing drugs. Schmidt is not able to play in any pre-season games but can attend training camp. Nate Schmidt Violates Performance-Enhancing Drugs Rules Nate Schmidt suspended 20 games for violating the NHL&#39;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1628,"featured_media":35062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[807,34],"tags":[534,3688,961],"class_list":["post-35056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vegas-golden-knights","category-news","tag-nate-schmidt","tag-performance-enhancing-drugs","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}