The Pittsburgh Penguins and Winnipeg Jets may not face one another very often, but that hasn’t stopped the two teams from developing a fiery rivalry this season. There were some controversial hits the last time these two teams played and that trend continued on Wednesday.
Tom Sestito made his first appearance with the Penguins since November and was memorable for all of the wrong reasons. He was the clear villain of the night, picking up a fight, a major penalty for checking from behind and a game misconduct (that’s 20 total penalty minutes) all in just over one minute (1:02) of ice time.
Let’s start with the play which sent him to the showers early.
That’s a brutal hit on Tobias Enstrom.
Sestito was rushing in quickly to hit Enstrom, but he had plenty of time to recognize that Enstrom had his back turned and was in a vulnerable position. Sestito saw Enstrom’s numbers and still drove him head-first into the boards. These types of plays have no place in the NHL.
Prior to that dangerous hit, Sestito dropped the mitts with Chris Thorburn.
Sestito needed to make an impression in order to win more playing time with his team, but he went about it in all of the wrong ways. That’s an eventful night for just 1:02 of ice time.
