Nikita Zadorov has been fined $5,000 for roughing Alex Vlasic, the maximum the CBA allows, and the Bruins defenseman now has a bill to pay.
The discipline follows Saturday night's 5-4 overtime win over the Blackhawks, a game in which Zadorov was assessed 14 PIM in just 15:02 of ice time.
A fine at the cap is the most the league can hand out in this category. It tells you the Department of Player Safety did not view the play as a minor misstep.
Zadorov now sits at 47 PIM through 14 games this season, alongside 4 assists and a +6 rating. Boston has lived with the trade-off so far, and Nikita Zadorov's 14 minutes in penalties were a big piece of a tense third period.
On the other side, Vlasic played 23:15 for Chicago and finished a -1 with 6 PIM and 6 shots on goal. He was on the ice for a lot of the game's physical moments.
Boston holds a 10-4-1 record, third in the NHL and first in the Atlantic Division. The Bruins are 7-2-1 over their last 10, so the standings are not the problem here.
Zadorov's penalty minutes are becoming a Boston problem
Here's what matters on the ice: a defenseman who spends 14 minutes in the box in one game takes a top-four body away from Marco Sturm's bench. Zadorov has 1045 PIM over his NHL career, so this is a long-running habit, not a one-night blip.
The Bruins got away with it against Chicago because they won in overtime. A tighter game against a better team does not leave that margin.
Gino Hard noted that Zadorov was hit with the maximum allowable fine under the CBA for roughing Vlasic.
The night already had heat before the fine, with Nikita Zadorov's hit on Connor Bedard setting the tone early. Bedard still finished with 1 goal and 1 assist in 22:07.
Boston hosts Vegas on Monday, November 2. How Sturm uses Zadorov, and how many minutes he spends in the box, will be worth watching.
