Matt Calvert is a cowardly scumbag.
If anyone anywhere, in any sport, in any walk of life, on a sheet of a ice or on a street downtown, does this to another human being ... that person is a cowardly scumbag:
I'm going to repeat this, just to be completely clear: That person is a cowardly scumbag.
That's barely even an opinion on my part.
This was Friday night at PPG Paints Arena, and 35 meaningless seconds remained in the Penguins' 4-1 Friday night flattening of the Blue Jackets, one that gave them both games and complete command of this Stanley Cup playoff series, as if that was ever in doubt. And Calvert, the fourth-line slug up there who's been barely distinguishable from any other Columbus forward in this series, decided he'd finish his evening by assaulting Tom Kuhnhackl.
From behind.
With his stick.
Across Kuhnhackl's neck.
Shattering the stick into splintered halves.
Then skating right back a second time, while Kuhnhackl's head is down and shouldering him to the ice.
With another hit to the head.
On the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue just outside, that gets you jail time. In Gary Bettman's NHL, that gets you a two-minute minor.
And good luck trying to find anything remotely resembling a motive, not that anything could rationalize the act. Because our staff spliced through every millisecond of tape available, including the NHL's multiple camera angles to which we have access, and all we turned up were these couple of shoves by Scott Wilson right off the preceding faceoff ...
... and this collision with Carter Rowney a moment later:
But if either of those set Calvert off, then he needs to be sedated with elephant tranquilizers.
There was no immediate word on Kuhnhackl's condition, and he wasn't seen afterward, so the only thing we know is that Calvert didn't exactly wish him well while he was being helped off the ice:
For those not versed in advanced lip-reading, Calvert drops a few four-letter bombs equating Kuhnhackl's actions -- you know, being blindsided twice -- with cowardice.
Imagine that.
Here's what I heard, and it came from a way-high-up source inside the building: After Patric Hornqvist scored an empty-netter and just before that faceoff up there, Calvert, per the source, made some kind of gesture -- possibly spoken -- to suggest he was set to take someone out on the final shift. And this source, though by far the most powerful one, wasn't alone in feeling this way.
The Penguins, as a whole, were livid. At every level of the organization, including the locker room. No one wanted to discuss it publicly. Mike Sullivan dismissed a question about it with his standard, "I don't really have thoughts. We're going to play the game." But that doesn't reflect their real feelings in the slightest. Trust me on that.
That said, wow, if there's any justice, the NHL won't suspend this guy.
Fine him, chain him to a chair without food and water, whatever. But from the Penguins' perspective, you've got to pray he stays put. Unless, of course, you fear he might exceed his career rate of 63 goals over seven seasons, or once every lunar equinox.
Let the Blue Jackets be the Blue Jackets, I say.
Let Brandon Dubinsky try repeatedly to get to Sidney Crosby, so that Crosby can score the Penguins' first goal, set up Jake Guentzel for another, then Evgeni Malkin for the third ...
... just as Dubinsky had stepped out of the penalty box because he tried to sucker the captain into a skirmish after the previous period's final horn.
Oops!
Let Scott Hartnell repeatedly tell anyone in earshot that he plans to "get under the skin" of the Penguins, as if he were still with the Flyers and this were still, what, 2008? Or 1975?
I asked Marc-Andre Fleury, after this 39-save gem, what Dubinsky and Hartnell have been saying to him through these two games during one of their frequent stops by his crease. Suffice it to say that barely a syllable of it was printable or, for that matter, intelligible. Just a mish-mash of swear words and threats, basically.
"I don't mind," the Flower followed up with that familiar grin.
He sure doesn't, if you ask Brandon Saad ...
... or any of the other Columbus players who can't push a puck past him without a little luck, which was how Saad beat him in the first period with a chip off Ron Hainsey's stick.
Let Nick Foligno further cement his reputation -- and longtime readers will note this is anything but a new observation for this column -- as one of the league's most notorious divers, as he did with this hilarious spill in the second:
Hainsey was called for holding there, if you can fathom that. Look at Foligno's skates. Watch nothing but the skates and how they slide it from under him, as if Uptown had just been hit by an 10.0 earthquake.
That guy's their captain.
Let Sergei Bobrovsky further cement his reputation as a Vezina Trophy goaltender in the regular season -- and he'd have my vote this spring, too -- but a nervous, writhing mess in the playoffs:
What was he waiting for there, anyway, a late bus?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bobrovsky would say. “It’s a mistake, and I take that.”
Whatever the case, that's now six goals in two games, with at least two-thirds of those stoppable by an elite playoff goaltender. Which he assuredly is not, judging by a 2-8 career record, 3.43 goals-against average and .891 save percentage in 15 career appearances.
Remember when we talked about how goaltending could swing the series?
Well, it's doing exactly that, only it's the guy at the other end growing more confidence by the day and shrugging off not only Columbus' weirdos but also any specter of giving the job back once Matt Murray mends:
