(Photo Credit: NBC Sports)

By: Andrew Taverna | Follow me on Twitter @andrewtaverna

The NHL Department of Player Safety has handed Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals a 5,000 dollar fine for spearing Boston’s Trent Frederic late in the third period of last night’s game, the maximum amount allowed per the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Trent Frederic and Alexander Ovechkin were tangled up in an altercation when Ovechkin blatantly takes his stick and jabs it up into Frederic’s “midsection.”

The league pretty well regulates a spearing penalty; however, the referees deemed the call to be a roughing minor in last night’s game. As such, Ovechkin only received a two-minute penalty instead of a major penalty. In addition to only getting a two-minute minor for roughing, Trent Frederic was also assessed a minor penalty for the altercation. That sequence led to a late-game four-on-four situation when in all likelihood, the Bruins should have had some powerplay time.

Regardless of which team you root for or what side you are on, a player should never spear another player like that, and the league at the end of the day decided it was appropriate to fine one of the league’s most prominent superstars.

Ultimately, you cannot help but wonder what a major penalty to Alexander Ovechkin could have done at the end of a game. In what turned out to be an eventful night and Zdeno Chara’s return to Boston, the Bruins ultimately lost the game in a shootout with a final score of 2-1, and Ovechkin is 5,000 dollars lighter this morning.