The NHL announced Monday that Pittsburgh Penguins forward James Neal is suspended five games without pay for kneeing Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand in the head on Saturday night.
The incident took place during the first period of Saturday's game after Penguins captain Sidney Crosby tripped Marchand near the boards in the Boston end of the ice, leaving Marchand laying on the ice on his side. While Marchand was down, Neal skated towards him and hit him in the head with his knee as he skated by.
Marchand stayed in the game but needed assistance from the team's trainer after the incident on the ice.
Neal, 26, has a history with being suspended by the league as he was banned for a playoff game in 2012 for back-to-back hits on Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers and he was suspended three seasons prior to that. Neal received warnings from the Department of Player Safety before in his career for some of his on-ice actions and has also been fined.
The incident led to Bruins' tough guy Shawn Thornton eventually taking down Pens defenseman Brooks Orpik from behind and delivering several punches to him while he was down on the ice. While Neal learned of his fate during a phone conference on Monday, Thornton is expected to get a much heavier sentence and it will be determined in an in-person hearing sometime this week.
Neal has 20 points in 20 games this season off of 10 goals and 10 assists, and said after the game he didn't think he did anything wrong.
"I was skating by him, I haven't seen the replay or anything so I mean I hit him in the head with my leg or my foot or my knee or shin area, I don't know," Neal said, according to CBS Boston. "But I mean he's already going down and I guess I need to try to avoid him, but I have to look at it again. I haven't gotten a chance to look at it. ... I mean, what do you want me to say? That I was trying to hit him? No, I'm going by him, I don't get out of the way like I said. I need to be more careful and I guess get my knee out of the way, but I'm not trying to hit him in the head or injure him or anything like that."
The Bruins took the third and final meeting this season 3-2 on Saturday night over the Penguins, and won two out of three games of the season series.
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