NHL punishes Nick Cousins for dirty slash on Ivan Demidov

It’s no secret that the preseason game between the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators at the Centre Videotron On Tuesday turned ugly, and now the NHL is making sure somebody pays.

On Wednesday, the NHL’s Player Safety announced that Senators’ Nick Cousins has been fined $2,148.44, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for slashing Habs’ rookie forward Ivan Demidov.

The dirty play occurred in the third period while the Canadiens had lost their enforcers, brothers Florian and Arber Xhekaj, after a series of scrums and fights.

Cousins swung an ugly slash at the hand of Demidov, who ended up leaving the game and not returning.

Senators' Hayden Hodgson was also fined $2,018.23, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for boarding Montreal’s Alex Newhook.

In all, more than 150 minutes of penalties were handed out in that game.

In the first period Florian Xhekaj drop the gloves with Jan Jenik, who ended up later in the game bloodied by an attack from defenseman Jayden Struble near the benches. Struble dropped him, and Jenik had to leave the ice to get repairs as he was busted open.

Officials were so fed up with both teams’ shenanigans that four players ended up being ejected from the game with a misconduct in the last frame. The Habs had to do without Arber Xhekaj for the last minutes of the game, which only prompted Cousins to go dirty as he slashed rookie star Ivan Demidov on his hand in what can only be described as a cheap shot. The Sens lost Zack McEwen, Cousins and Donovan Sebrango all out with game misconducts.