"Department of Panthers Safety": NHL DoPS slammed by fans as Lightning get slapped with $125,000 fines and multiple suspensions

The NHL Department of Player Safety is under fire from fans after dishing out heavy fines and suspensions to the Tampa Bay Lightning following their pre-season game with the Florida Panthers on Saturday.

The game had over 300 penalty minutes and 16 ejections. The Lightning have been slapped with a collective $125,000 fine, including a $100,000 team penalty and a $25,000 fine for coach Jon Cooper.

Additionally, two Tampa Bay players have been suspended.

Fans criticized the league's response, with one declaring:

"Department of Panthers Safety baybee!" on the sanctions were overly favorable to Florida.

Another wrote:

"But nothing for the panthers or Mikkola is crazy"

Here are some more fan reactions:

"Why do the panthers constantly get away with dirty hits and when someone finally does it to them they get fined 100K," one wrote. "*The fine, levied by NHL Hockey Ops department (overseen by Florida's Assistant GM's father), goes to "charitable" causes," another wrote. "fining the lightning but not the panthers who played a player who was kick out of the game..," a user commented. "Honestly, if the NHL won’t protect Hagel (I know he had a dirty hit last year). … $100k is well worth it. Panthers got their shot on him last year, and get continuing to go after him. But what Greer did was way outside of that and the league should’ve taken action. This is on them," a fan wrote.

Before Saturday's game, the two teams had already engaged in a similarly physical matchup. They both got 186 minutes combined, with the Lightning winning 5-2.

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Saturday's pre-season game: Tampa Bay Lightning vs Florida Panthers

In the opening minutes, Tampa Bay’s Scott Sabourin leveled Aaron Ekblad with a clean hit. He followed it up by dropping his gloves and throwing several bare-fisted punches. Sabourin got a four-game suspension after Monday hearing.

The NHL pointed to Sabourin’s intent and the escalating hostility between the two teams as key factors in the length of the ban. Meanwhile, defenseman J.J. Moser got a two-game suspension for boarding Jesper Boqvist from behind later in the first period.

Roman Schmidt was fined $2,098.52 for cross-checking, while Gage Goncalves was docked $3,125 for a similar infraction.

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Edited by Bhargav