The Department of Player Safety is an embarrassment; Hall assessed nothing more than a fine

During Tuesday's matchup between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins at TD Garden, Bruins winger Taylor Hall had turned to play a puck after Leafs defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin had committed to a hit. While Lyubushkin had pulled back and delivered more of a shove than a hit, Hall got up and pursued Lyubushkin, whose attention was on the play ahead of him, and sucker punched him in the side of the head, dropping him to ice.

Lyubushkin would need assistance to make his way off the ice and down the tunnel and would not return to the game. Meanwhile, Hall was assessed a 2-minute minor penalty, though the penalty - if the NHL officials actually knew and followed the rule book - should have been an automatic match penalty.

Furthermore, as you'll recall, during the Heritage Classic on March 13th, Auston Matthews cross checked Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin in the neck, not causing injury, and not a minute after the game had ended, TSN's Chris Johnston had confirmed that the NHL's Department of Player Safety was already reviewing the play. A short time later, Matthews was offered a hearing as a result of the play. Within 24 hours, Matthews was suspended. Dahlin, meanwhile, did not miss a single shift.

In this instance, Hall committed a clear infraction, as written in the NHL's rule book, causing injury, and here we are more than 12 hours later and George Parros had nothing more to offer than a mere $5,000 fine. It's like the NHL learned nothing from the Todd Bertuzzi/Steve Moore incident.