Clear replay contradicts refs as Malkin gets costly playoff penalty

Late in the second period against the Flyers, Travis Konecny took two sticks to the face on the same sequence. One belonged to Malkin. The other belonged to his own teammate, Rasmus Ristolainen.

The officials went to the video review. They came back and called it four minutes on Malkin.

Watch the replay and Ristolainen's stick is the one that catches Konecny flush in the face. Malkin's stick is nearby, sure, but the contact that does the damage? That's number 55 in orange and black.

It's like getting charged for someone else's dinner, except this one happens in the playoffs, down two goals, with Pittsburgh on the wrong side of the series.

Philadelphia already leads this first-round series 1-0 after winning Game 1 on April 18, and the Flyers were leading 2-0 in the second period at the time of the call.

Malkin had been one of the Penguins' most dangerous players. He entered Game 2 with a goal and an assist in the playoffs, posting 5 goals and 10 points over his last 5 regular-season games.

At 39 years old and on a $3.8 million cap hit, he's not supposed to be this good. But he's been Pittsburgh's best player in stretches this postseason.

Sitting in the box for four minutes on a call that most viewers couldn't justify just compounds the problem.

Pittsburgh was held scoreless through two periods, putting up 14 shots on goal. Philadelphia outshot them 17-14 through the same stretch, with a 53.7% face-off edge on top of it.

The Penguins came in on a three-game losing streak and went 5-5-0 over their last 10 regular-season games. They could not afford a gift-wrapped power play for the Flyers.

And the Flyers didn't even need it for the goals. Porter Martone scored the game-winner earlier in the period, just his second game in the playoffs. The kid is 19 years old, on a $966,667 cap hit, and already has a goal in back-to-back postseason games.

Meanwhile Ristolainen, the Flyer whose stick actually appears to connect with Konecny's face, walked off clean.

Whether the officials missed it, misidentified the contact, or simply couldn't reverse a call once the four-minute penalty was announced, the result is the same. The Penguins watched their most experienced forward skate to the box for something he almost certainly didn't do, at the worst possible time.

The Flyers are up 2-0 in the game and 1-0 in the series. Pittsburgh heads into Game 3 and Game 4 at home needing to answer, and the officiating conversation isn't going anywhere quietly.

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