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Under further review: NHL won’t make decisions on Pens-Isles suspensions until tonight

Pittsburgh Penguins v New York Islanders

of the New York Islanders of the Pittsburgh Penguins on February 11, 2011 at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

Jim McIsaac

Much like the scorekeepers who needed some time to determine the penalty minutes for last night’s ugly Pittsburgh Penguins-New York Islanders game, TSN reports that the NHL won’t make an announcement regarding suspensions and fines for all the incidents until tonight.

The one thing we already know is that Penguins enforcer Eric Godard should face an automatic 10-game suspension for leaving the team’s bench to engage Michael Haley in a fight. The thought was that Penguins coach Dan Bylsma would also serve a one-game suspension for that incident, but TSN reports that he isn’t guaranteed one.

Three Islanders are scheduled for in-person meetings with the league around 5 pm ET today: Matt Martin, Trevor Gillies and Zenon Konopka. Such meetings would allow for suspensions exceeding six games, although that doesn’t guarantee that any suspensions will be handed out either.

Gillies and Martin were among the game’s worst offenders for their on-ice incidents, but TSN points out that Konopka might be guilty of a more specific infraction.

Konopka could be facing a potential violation of rule 70.2, which involves coming onto ice on a legal change for purposes of starting an altercation.

Naturally, we will keep you informed as the league tries to clean up this mess. Both the Islanders (at Buffalo) and Penguins (at the Rangers) play games on Sunday, so the NHL needs to make a decision today. This could be a precedent-setting series of fines and suspensions, so it should be very interesting to see how this plays out.