The Calgary Flames had a crummy night Wednesday as they lost 5-2 to the Colorado Avalanche, but winger Johnny Gaudreau might have had the crummiest night of all. After getting high-sticked by Blake Comeau in the third period, Johnny Hockey—do people still call him that?—inexplicably received a matching penalty for embellishment. When Gaudreau protested, he got a 10-minute game misconduct and early end to his night.
Even if you want to argue that Comeau didn’t actually hit Gaudreau in the face, the stick was definitely close enough to his face to make flinching a reasonable human response:
The officiating crew of Jon McIsaac, Dan O’Halloran, Shane Heyer, and Greg Devorski deliberated before Gaudreau was tossed. The Flames player was understandably cheesed off as he left the ice.
Flames coach Glen Gulutzan was baffled, too:
Earlier in the game, Gaudreau had to briefly leave the ice when one of his teammate’s skates nicked him in the neck. Just a series of shitty events for this guy.