TORONTO – Los Angeles Kings’ defenseman Sean O’Donnell has been suspended for the remainder of the Kings’ pre-season schedule and two regular season games as the result of a match penalty in a pre-season game against the New York Islanders, September 22, the National Hockey League announced today.

At 16:37 of the second period, O’Donnell was assessed a match penalty for delivering a cross check to Matt Martin of the Islanders.

O’Donnell will miss the Kings remaining three pre-season games (tonight and Sept. 26 against Colorado and Sept. 27 at Anaheim) as well as the first two games of the Kings’ regular season schedule. He will be eligible to return Oct. 8 vs. Minnesota.

SOURCE – NHL.com

Without TV coverage of the game it’s hard to judge, but Terry Murray and members of the team seemed pleased that O’Donnell came to the aid of Drew Doughty after what was deemed a questionable hit by Matt Martin of the Islanders. Terry Murray told Rich Hammond of Inside the Kings:

“The Islanders player came across and it was a situation where it was a shoulder hit to the head area, one of those late hits that needs to be taken out of the game, in my opinion. In that situation, O’Donnell responded to protect his teammate, and that’s a good thing to see. With the culture we’re trying to build here, that’s exactly what we want to see happen. It’s a great message to all of the players on the team.”

Martin, incidentally was not suspended for the hit on Doughty. What makes no sense to me is that the officials would rule this as “Intent to Injure”. In two cases last season, the Evgeny Artyukhin hit on Drew Doughty and the Evgeni Malkin hit on Wayne Simmonds – the officials could’ve easily deemed either or both “Intent to Injure”. In this case, Sean O’Donnell comes to the aid of a teammate after the opposing player delivered what the team considered to be a dirty hit, and the officials and the league decide to throw the book at him. It’s a frustrating double standard to be sure.

Kings at Colorado tonight at 6PM Pacific time. You can listen to the game on KTLK 1150AM in the Los Angeles area or stream it live HERE

-JS