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Taylor Hall fined, not suspended, for punching Leafs’ Lyubushkin

Taylor Hall fined, not suspended, for punching Leafs' Lyubushkin

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety fined Bruins forward Taylor Hall $5K for punching (“roughing”) Maple Leafs defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin. While the Maple Leafs won on Tuesday, it could be a costly victory, as Lyubushkin, Petr Mrazek, and Justin Holl all left the game with injuries.

Hall clearly wasn’t happy with the hit Lyubushkin delivered right before the punch was thrown.

Here’s the full sequence:

Excessive or accurate, some compared Hall’s punch to the infamous Todd Bertuzzi - Steve Moore incident.

Here’s another angle of the punch:

Via Boston Hockey Now’s Joe Haggerty, the Bruins focused on officiating, as they believed officials should’ve made a boarding call.

“Taylor got upset and rightfully so. [David Pastrnak] had a hard, clean hit earlier in the game. We were told nobody likes to receive a hit like that and we got the same hit [on Hall],” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. “They’re communicating to us, and they have to back up their standard. If that’s their standard then that’s their standard, and it’s entirely up to them. So stick to your standard, I guess. I get why Taylor was upset.”

Meanwhile, Alexander Kerfoot shook off the general rough stuff from the Bruins.

“If they want to go around and do that, they’re more than welcome to,” Kerfoot said. “It doesn’t bother us at all.”

That said, injuries could bother the Maple Leafs quite a bit. Ideally, this early read on Ilya Lyubushkin points to Toronto dodging a bullet.

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.