At the end of the second period of the Boston Bruins' game at the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday night, Alexei Emelin passed the puck up the boards and then braced himself for a hit from the incoming Brad Marchand.
Only Marchand didn't connect at the shoulders; he got his Brad Marchand on and came in low. Too low in the eyes of the officials, who gave him a clipping minor for this hit:
Here's the RDS feed. Emelin returned to play in the third period.
While it wasn't the magnitude of the hit on Sami Salo that resulted in a 5-game suspension for Marchand on Jan. 9, one can't help but wonder if the NHL would view this as (a) "a predatory, low hit delivered intentionally" — this isn't the first time these two have met on the ice — and/or (b) an example of a player not having learned anything from the supplemental discipline process one month earlier.
To that last part, remember what Marchand said before the Salo suspension: "If that's an illegal hit, I'll take that out of my game." So … stop clipping people then, m'kay?