Outrage Grows as NHL Fines Mikkola but Turns Blind Eye to Marchand-Gostisbehere Incident

Gary Bettman, George Parros and the NHL's Department of Player Safety has been incredibly inconsistent in recent years, and after an incident in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, their hypocrisy has been called out once more.

Late in the regular season, Florida's Niko Mikkola was fined $5,000 by the league for shooting a puck towards Montreal's team late in the game, and on Tuesday, Carolina's Shane Gostisbehere did the same, but in his incident, he actually hit Brad Marchand.

How did the league react this time? They simply didn't, as Eric Engels reported there would be no further discipline for either player involved in this incident that occurred in Game 1 of the ECF.

On top of that, back in the first round in a series with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators, Senators veteran Nick Cousins was fined $5,000 by the league for simply shooting a puck in warmup gently towards former teammate Anthony Stolarz, and this is yet another example of how inconsistent the DoPS is.

In both of those cases where fines were handed out, no player was hit with the puck, but in this instance, Gostisbehere shot it directly at Marchand, hitting him in the arm and leading to both players dropping the gloves.

It's unclear exactly why there was no fine for the incident in Game 1, but looking back on past comparables, it's a shock to see how this incident was handled, as many believe that the DoPS need a major overhaul this off-season for all of their inconsistent calls.