Boston Bruins: Will Evgeni Malkin Be Disciplined for Hit on Johnny Boychuk?

Barely two weeks removed from a concussion that cost him two appearances, Boston Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk endured a much more dubious hit than the altogether clean one he took from Ottawa’s Chris Neil.

Late in Sunday afternoon’s tilt with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Boychuk was thrust face-first into the wall in the corner to the left of his own cage by Evgeni Malkin. And this was after the Bruins had lost Adam McQuaid in the first period and Patrice Bergeron early in the second.

Although Boychuk barely missed a shift, returning within three game-clock minutes of the hit, the Penguins’ energetic point producer was tagged with a two-minute boarding minor.

But had Boychuk exhibited more trouble getting up, let alone staying in action, a five-minute sentence may have been warranted. Based on the position of the hit’s giver and recipient, who had little or no way of detecting the oncoming checker, Malkin’s infraction constituted a hit from behind just as much as it did a boarding play.

Malkin’s disciplinary history could come into play as the X-factor in terms of whether or not the reel of the Boychuk hit settles into senior vice president of player safety Brendan Shanahan’s office. It will certainly have played a role if the latest hit has Malkin watching from the press box when the Pens engage the New York Rangers on Thursday.

Roughly three months ago, Malkin escaped supplemental discipline in the wake of a controversial incident in the neutral zone during a Dec. 8 tilt with the Philadelphia Flyers. After a brief exchange of stick-jabs out of the Flyers zone and into neutral territory, Malkin appeared to throw his elbow at the dodging head of Claude Giroux before going to the Pittsburgh bench.

There was also Malkin’s rescinded suspension for instigating a fight in the final minute of Game 2 of the 2009 Stanley Cup finals. Although that happened under the supervision of Shanahan’s predecessors, it is still the same offender in question.

Bruins fans wishing to make a case can point to the recent pattern surrounding Milan Lucic, who was summoned for a hearing but was not suspended for his November collision with Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller.

Precisely five weeks after that incident and the debatable ruling that followed, Lucic biffed Philadelphia’s Zac Rinaldo blatantly from behind. The nature of that play and the perpetrator’s history proved plenty to warrant a one-game ban.

Malkin not only has a record comparable to that of Lucic, but he also pinned Boychuk in a manner comparable to Lucic on Rinaldo, who was not injured on the play but nonetheless vulnerable at the time of its occurrence.

In fact, in that Dec. 17 Boston triumph over Philadelphia, Rinaldo returned to action and incurred a cumulative 17 penalty minutes for separate fighting, misconduct and cross-checking offenses. Boychuk was boxed for goaltender interference less than six minutes after the Malkin incident.

The point here, naturally, is that Malkin’s fate for the coming week will rest solely on his immediate, recent and relatively distant history. Or, at least, it ought to.