Matt Calvert breaks stick over Tom Kuhnhackl’s neck (Video)

Matt Calvert broke his stick over Penguins forward Tom Kuhnhackl’s neck. 

The Columbus Blue Jackets lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-1 on Friday night. It obviously frustrated them quite a bit. They are now merely two games away from elimination and they’ve been outscored 7-2 so far this series. However, Matt Calvert expressed his frustration and disappointment in an extremely inappropriate way. In the waning seconds of Game 2, he broke his stick over Penguins forward Tom Kuhnhackl’s neck. Calvert then shoves him to the ice and stands over him, trying to fight him.

Amazingly, he only got two minutes for cross checking. Calvert should have gotten much more than just two minutes — this should have been a match penalty. Granted, it was in the waning seconds so it doesn’t really matter, but at least a match penalty puts the onus on Department of Player Safety to suspend him. Anything short of a four-game suspension would be way too short. This is easily 10-game territory, depending on how the league feels about how late it was.

The Penguins have no interest in playing that way with the Blue Jackets. Pens head coach Mike Sullivan commented after the game, saying his team can’t control whether they win after the whistle. The Blue Jackets face a must win Game 3 on Sunday. And it’s quite likely they’ll have to win it with Calvert, who could be done for a while.

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So far, Sergei Bobrovsky of the Blue Jackets hasn’t looked much like a Vezina Trophy candidate. But to be fair, the team in front of him isn’t playing well either. They’ve scored just two goals on Penguins backup goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Pittsburgh has all the momentum right now in a series everyone thought Columbus had a shot in.