Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban argues with referee Dave Jackson after receiving a game misconduct during second period of Game 1 NHL first round playoff hockey action against the Ottawa Senators Wednesday, April 15, 2015 in Montreal.
Leave it to P.K. Subban to inject some controversy into a playoff series.
The Montreal Canadiens won Game 1 on Wednesday over the Ottawa Senators primarily on the strength of a great game (and two key goals) from its fourth line, but all anyone was talking about afterward was Subban being tossed from the game for a slash on Ottawa's Mark Stone.
Beginning a battle in front of the net, Subban hit Stone on one of the most vulnerable parts of a player's body – the wrist area, just above the glove and below the elbow pad – and it sent him writhing to the ice in pain.
It wasn't a small slash. Subban raised his stick high and came down relatively hard, with his hands choked up a little on the shaft of his stick. It looked bad live; it looked worse in slow motion.
"That was a lumberjack slash," Stone's admittedly biased teammate Clarke MacArthur said after the game.
Because the NHL rulebook requires a major and a game misconduct in the case of a slash causing an injury, the call was a tough one but it was by the book.
If only anything were that simple.
One of the problems here is that the NHL's rulebook is centred around the notion of injuries instead of the actions themselves, putting officials in the position where they have to judge almost instantaneously how hurt Stone was.
And he looked in considerable discomfort, to the point it wouldn't be a reach for the referees to believe he potentially had a broken bone.
But the bigger issue here was the rush on social media and by some in the media to denounce Stone as a "faker" when Subban was the player who went over the line.
This was a penalty. There wasn't a lot of grey area. It also caused some sort of injury to Stone, who left the game multiple times, and was seen in pain on the bench.
In short, it was a dumb play by Subban – on a player that didn't have the puck – and it deserved to be punished, likely with more than a minor.
If it had happened during the regular season, a suspension would be possible. Maybe even plausible.
(Sens coach Dave Cameron poured some gasoline on that fire by saying his team would have to respond with a slash if Subban wasn't suspended, which wasn't the wisest phrasing given past retaliation incidents in the league.)
"That's up to the league," said Stone, who said he was icing up the wrist throughout the game. "Obviously it was a pretty big hack. Looked like he wanted to hurt me."
There's no question diving can be an issue at times for the NHL. The league instituted stiffer penalties for embellishment this year to catch it, and many more players received warnings and fines as a result.
But this play clearly wasn't a dive. It defies logic that a player standing in front of the net while his team has possession in the offensive zone is going to fall for the call like that, especially given how and where Subban hit him.
Instead of crucifying the officials for calling it correctly in real time, Habs fans should have blamed Subban, who was ultimately bailed out by his teammates with the win.
He needs to be more disciplined than that, especially in a close playoff game.
Isles stun Caps: It feels like a few pretty good teams have been almost completely written off coming into these playoffs. Detroit is one. Nashville another. (What a game they gave Chicago, the heavy favourite, in going to double overtime in Game 1.)
Pittsburgh is, too, even if the Penguins have some serious injury concerns.
You can put the Islanders in that group as well, as they had a very tough stretch to end the season. Yet they won Game 1 pretty convincingly over Washington (4-1 with an empty-netter), with Jaroslav Halak outplaying Braden Holtby in one key duel that could well decide the series.
The Capitals were dominated territorially in this game when their first line wasn't on the ice, and that's going to be a growing concern. Depth is an issue on this roster (Jay Beagle played more than 15 minutes in Game 1, for example) and the Isles have some good young players filling their second and third lines.
It's why they had the season they did: They finally have the support around John Tavares that allows them to compete with some of the league's best teams. They can be a hard team to handle, with their youth and speed. They should only get better in the years to come, too.
These teams aren't going power on power in this series – with Alex Ovechkin rarely facing Tavares on Wednesday – and both top lines played fairly well while making a pretty limited impact on the scoresheet. That's likely not going to be the case all series.
But for Game 1 anyway, the Isles depth led the way.