This just in: Hockey is an intense game.
So when playoffs come and intensity is incrementally ratcheted to season-ending levels, it should surprise precisely no one that the passion occasionally spills into the margins.
And for the more egregious margin spills, the NHL steps in.
A handful of players tend to get the league's stiffest penalty—suspension—during each postseason, with the majority getting a game off the ice when their physical antics cross the line. But some go a bit further, pushing the envelope into multiple games and occasionally leaving scars that linger well beyond their prescribed time in the penalty box and on the sidelines.