The good news is the Penguins finally got back into the win column avoiding another loss. They defeated the Nashville Predators in overtime with the winning goal being scored by Sidney Crosby. The bad news is they will probably lose Evgeni Malkin for a few games because of his crosschecking incident on Sunday.
Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin will have a hearing this evening for Cross-checking Nashville’s Mark Borowiecki.
— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) April 11, 2022
Evgeni Malkin will have a hearing this evening for cross checking #Preds defender Mark Borowiecki. pic.twitter.com/7AxiMp81vK
— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) April 11, 2022
It was unnecessary for Malkin to act out like he did. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. Malkin has shown over the years he isn’t immune to crossing the line. It isn’t even the first time he got caught swinging his stick. His other suspensions was stick swinging related
Malkin gets punched. Swings his stick at Raffl.
— hockeyfights (@hockeyfights) February 12, 2019
Match penalty. pic.twitter.com/5D3s4TUufS
I’d love to have a new opinion or a different take on this stuff, but I don’t. I doubt Malkin would swing his stick and crosscheck up high if the league showed it was capable of issuing 5 or 10 game suspensions on a regular basis. They don’t and players like Malkin will continue to cross the line because sometimes they get caught and miss a couple of games, but many times they get like a $5,000 fine and move on with their day.
The Penguins have been struggling to earn points in the standings as of late. This isn’t going to help their cause.
Thanks for reading!