Sidney Crosby and Andrei Svechnikov got into an altercation late in the second period of the Penguins' 6-5 overtime loss to the Hurricanes that put the visitors on a power play.

Crosby and Svechnikov got tangled up in the corner, and Crosby punched Svechnikov in the side of the head. Svechnikov retaliated with a slash over the back of Crosby's legs, making contact with the back side of Crosby's right knee, the knee that Crosby sustained an injury to during the Olympics:

Crosby got a well-deserved two-minute roughing minor for the punch, and Svechnikov got two for holding the stick and two for unsportsmanlike conduct.

"He just was grabbing my stick," Crosby told me one-on-one afterward. "I mean, multiple times. So, I mean, I don't know what he expects me to do if he's holding on my stick for that long. And obviously, there was no call. It was a coincidental. Plus, he slashed me after that. Then he ends up yelling at the ref, so he probably could have got three penalties."

"But they saw that trip on (Sebastian) Aho," Crosby added, referring to his own tripping penalty that resulted in a K'Andre Miller power-play goal.

Now, Crosby probably doesn't punch Svechnikov in the head if the hold on his stick is called in the first place. And if Crosby doesn't punch Svechnikov in the head, then Svechnikov probably doesn't take the swing at his legs. But because that slash from Svechnikov was specifically to the back of the knee that everyone knows Crosby is coming off of an injury from, I asked him if he thought Svechnikov was targeting that knee.

"No, no," Crosby said. "You know, he does that a lot regardless."