The NHL Department of Player Safety issued fines against Ottawa forward Nick Cousins for a pre-game incident that occurred prior to Thursday night’s game three against the Maple Leafs, per a department statement. The Senators were also fined for the incident.
During warm-ups, Cousins wristed a shot at Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz as he stretched in the neutral zone. The action will cost Cousins $2,083.33, the maximum allowable amount under the CBA for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Senators were also fined $25,000. Cousins, who was activated from LTIR on April 13 after missing months with a knee injury, has appeared in two of three games in the series, averaging just 9:34 of ice time per game.
Being pegged as “Warm-up Gate,” TSN insider Chris Johnston believes the league is taking the event so seriously to avoid an additional pre-game incident from taking place in the series, which could cause emotions to boil over. Toronto head coach Craig Berube laughed off the incident (and even shared a story of his playing days when Tie Domi and Ron Hextall got into it over a similar situation), while Sens coach Travis Green also made light of the situation.
With the Sens one game away from being swept by Toronto, Green did take a serious tone when noting how “disheartening” the series has been up to this point, per The Athletic’s Julian McKenzie. While games two and three went to overtime, Toronto came out on top in both contests, essentially dashing Ottawa’s hopes of a series win. After an eight-year playoff drought, the Senators are just one loss away from elimination.
With that said, Green noted his team won’t go down without a fight.
“It’s disheartening, to say the least. Sometimes playoff hockey comes down to little inches or bounces, and we were on the wrong end of it tonight,” he said. “The one thing I know about our team is, we’re not going to lie down, we’re not going to go away, we’re going to be ready to play,”
Sometimes mixing things up can work out…I remember Max Talbot shushing the Philly crowd after Carcillo kicked his *** before we came back to win that game and series.
But, this just seems small and petty when you aren’t even competitive in the series.
2 games have gone to overtime, how is that not competitive?
Not a Sens or Leafs fan either for the matter, but the puck was “wristed” across the ice from the one teams blue line, to just the other side of the other teams side of centre where the goalie was stretching and didn’t even acknowledge it. Nothingburger. League probably should have just sent a warning against such immature things and not fined anyone. But because of the Habs/Caps situation had to make a mark.
Sens have had like one lead, chasing the play, etc.
I picked the Sens to upset but TOR has skated circles around them.
Not sure what you are watching but both shot attempts and possession time numbers favour the sens. Toronto is def not skating circles around them.
Cousins no doubt enjoys being the villian. :D