It’s not entirely clear where Alex Pietrangelo is coming from with some of his remarks, but the Vegas Golden Knights defenseman is not happy. Suggesting the Edmonton Oilers are specifically targeting him and that they are guilty of a premeditated attack against him, he also hinted that the Oilers are embellishing for calls and that the NHL DoPS didn’t care when he tried to explain that to them.
As per Jesse Granger of The Athletic: ” Alex Pietrangelo was very fired up this morning, coming off his suspension.” He quoted the blueliner who said, “It’s pretty obvious what’s been going on. It was premeditated stuff, I’m pretty sure. (DoPS) didn’t seem to care, but I’ll get up and take it. I’m not going to lay on the ice like what’s going on.” Granger adds that he asked if there’s any extra motivation heading into Game 6 after everything that’s happened and the response was, “Oh yeah. Absolutely. I’m sure the rest of the guys do too.”
Pietrangelo noted that it was hard to watch Game 5 and that he was upset knowing he couldn’t be in the game to watch his teammates’ backs. He said, “We have each other’s back. Sitting there last night watching the game, I was sweating.” He’ll get the chance to help his Vegas Golden Knights eliminate the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night as he’ll be back in the lineup with his club up 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.
As for how he’ll react to the Oilers when he’s on the ice, that remains to be seen.
Does Pietrangelo Have a Point?
Granger tried to clarify in another tweet what Pietrangelo was referring to with his comments about premeditated attacks against him. He noted, “To be clear, by “premeditated stuff” Alex Pietrangelo is referring to plays by the Oilers against him (like Evander Kane’s cross-check) that he felt was premeditated. He brought them up in his hearing, but said the DoPS didn’t seem to care about them.”
It is true, the defenseman was a target for the Oilers. It is also true that Evander Kane’s hit on him could have easily been called a penalty. But, Pietrangelo is not the only one who has been targeting and that goes both ways as the series between Edmonton and Vegas has gotten extremely physical.
One could argue that Mark Stone and anyone else who could potentially produce against Edmonton has been a target for the Oilers and Edmonton has made a conscious effort to put players on tilt via a barrage of constant hits and heavy forechecking throughout the games and the series.
Should the NHL DoPS take the history of plays leading up to the action into consideration? And if so, should they rule in favor of the person on the receiving end of that premeditated attack or for the team who was able to get one player to absolutely snap and break the rules?
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