Evgeni Malkin is Lucky he Didn’t Lose More than Just the Game
TSDMike | June 1, 2009
In the last 12 hours, Evgeni Malkin has gotten lucky on three fronts. First, he’s lucky that the NHL didn’t fine and suspend him for attacking Henrik Zetterberg at the end of game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. He came at him with two glancing blows to the back of his head with his stick. If this were another player, or a game where the stakes weren’t as high, he’d undoubtedly be sitting out a couple of games for that.
Then he got lucky again this morning when the NHL redacted the fight instigator misconduct penalty that was assessed by officials at the end of the fight last night. This penalty carries a game suspension if it occurs in the last five minutes of the game, which it obviously did. Again, if this were someone other than the League’s leading scorer, in a contest other the last series for the championship, this call surely would have been upheld.
But those two instances pale in comparison to the biggest stroke of luck in Malkin’s favor – the fact that the official aggressively intervened and saved him from getting his ass pummelled by ‘Z’. Hank was on his way to showing young Malkin that he just f***ed with the wrong bull but instead he’ll live to play in game three because the referee got between the two of them and even absorbed a blow or two that were meant for Malkin’s dome.
Check out the video:
