Kane furious, says NHL official's treatment of him was “abuse of a player.”

There was a ton of controversy in the National Hockey League last night during a match up between the San Jose Sharks andthe Las Vegas Golden Knights, and these latest comments from Sharks forward Evander Kane will only add fuel to the fire. 

Kane was involved in an incident with an NHL linesman and there is no question that Kane stepped over the line of what is acceptable in the NHL and put his hands on the official in question. However, there is a good case to be made here that Kane's actions were actually a reaction to what the behavior from the linesman himself and now Evander Kane is speaking out and making that very same claim. Kane clearly feels he was not in the wrong here and following the game on Sunday he made it clear that he felt he had been abused by the official.

First and foremost, for those of you who missed the incident here is a short video clip that shows the incident itself and the moments that led up to it:

It seems obvious to me that the linesman was frustrated at the fact that Kane's stick made contact with his leg when Kane delivered a slash to the leg of Las Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland. Now to be fair to the linesman I would probably be a little upset as well, but you would be hard pressed to argue that he did not put himself in that position by trying to manhandle the players. Why the linesman was involved in tugging on Engelland's jersey to pull him back is anybody's guess as no call had been made on the play. It seemed like the official was trying to pre-emptively police an incident and put himself in the line of fire as a result. 

Kane it seems took particular issue with the way the official grabbed him after the fact.

"I got kicked out of the game for getting jumped from behind by a referee, Kyle Merchandise or whatever his name is," said Kane to reporters after the game. "I have never seen a ref take five strides, and if you look at his face he is getting all of his power and trying to drive me into the ice which is what he did. You're talking about abuse of an official? How about abuse of a player? It's an absolute joke."

Kane is obviously very angry at this and although I initially suspected a suspension could be forthcoming for Kane, he did after all push the official, I think given the video evidence the NHL might be hard pressed to discipline him. It seems fair to suggest that the linesman lost his cool here, and no doubt the NHLPA would fight this suspension by pointing to the fact that the shove from Kane came after the takedown from the NHL official.