Top Shelf: Rinaldo makes worst of a bad situation

Jan 21, 2015 - 6:37 PM Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) - The NHL regular season is about to be put on hold for the All-Star Game and all the fanfare that goes along with it.

The break from action could prove to be much longer than expected for Philadelphia's Zac Rinaldo, and, considering his behavior on Tuesday night, that's not a bad thing.

Rinaldo marred what was an otherwise entertaining game between two of the league's fiercest rivals -- the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Although Philly is struggling to keep its head above water in the Eastern Conference standings, the Flyers once again showed they can still dial up the intensity when facing the hated Penguins, notching a 3-2 overtime win at Wells Fargo Center.

Before Claude Giroux won it for the Flyers with an OT marker, the teams combined for 93 penalty minutes. It shouldn't be too surprising that most of the physical stuff came after Rinaldo delivered an ugly hit on Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang in the first period.

Rinaldo already had taken a cross-checking minor earlier in the game, but that was nothing compared to the boarding major that came later in the first period. Despite seeing nothing but the back of Letang's jersey, Rinaldo left his feet to finish a check which resulted in the Flyers forward getting a game misconduct.

Video of the incident can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/ojac33v.

Letang was slow to get off the ice and left the game for good. Although the Penguins have not revealed the nature of Letang's injury, it is promising that the talented blueliner was able to participate in Wednesday's morning skate. Whether he will be able to play when Pittsburgh takes on visiting Chicago on Wednesday is still unclear, but the team said he is still undergoing tests for a concussion and will be a game-time decision against the Blackhawks.

It would be a fortunate turn of events if Letang was able to avoid serious injury, but even if he won't miss a significant amount of time, there seems to be no way for Rinaldo to escape a lengthy suspension.

By now it's known the NHL takes injuries into account when determining the length of suspensions. In this case, however, the league's head disciplinarian, Stephane Quintal, may have to factor in some comments Rinaldo made after the game as well.

Postgame interviews with players who were accused of dirty play can take all kinds of forms. Sometimes the person strikes a defiant tone and fails to claim responsibility while other times a player is wise enough to express remorse for their actions.

Rinaldo not only failed to take the blame for the hit, he made it much worse by offering this nugget following Tuesday's game.

"I changed the whole game, man. (Expletive) who knows what the game would've been if I didn't do what I did?"

Maybe Rinaldo is right about changing the game, but if you want to argue about the veracity of his statement then you are clearly missing the point. With Letang's status still in question and plenty of time for Rinaldo to think about his part in hurting him, the Flyers forward decided to show pride in the hit instead of even the smallest amount of shame. Because even if he did alter the course of the game, he only did so by injuring one of Pittsburgh's top players and it's obviously wrong to boast about such a thing.

With Rinaldo being offered an in-person hearing with the league (at a time yet to be determined), it is widely speculated the repeat offender will be receiving a suspension of longer than five games for the hit. Although Quintal may not reference Rinaldo's postgame comments when the video explaining his suspension is released, my guess is the topic will come up when the two men are discussing the incident behind closed doors.

There was some confusion as to whether Rinaldo was joking with his "changed the whole game" comments, but he refuted those claims via his Twitter account.

"I didn't intend to hurt Kris tonight. I'm very sorry I did," read Rinaldo's tweet. "At no point did I ever 'joke' about such a thing. Those reports are untrue."

It doesn't matter to me whether Rinaldo was joking or not when he ended Tuesday's media scrum with those ill-advised words. In fact, it looks worse if he wasn't kidding because that could mean he thinks it's his job to hurt key players from opposing teams. Joking about it would be insensitive and extremely immature, but it might be better than actually being proud of the hit and seeing it as some sort of accomplishment.

Of course, Rinaldo does earn his pay for delivering big hits, but that's because he offers little else to a hockey team. Pittsburgh had some of the same kind of players in its own lineup on Tuesday, including winger Bobby Farnham, who has compiled 24 penalty minutes in 11 career games before recording his first NHL point.

Some folks will go over the top and call for Rinaldo to be banned from the league. The same thing happened earlier this week when Chicago's Daniel Carcillo, a former Flyer and himself a repeat offender, was given a six-game suspension for a boarding play of his own.

Rinaldo doesn't need to be run out of the game, but it wouldn't hurt him to sit for a couple of weeks to contemplate his dangerous hit and the flippant way in which he addressed it.

After his actions and words on Tuesday night, it's clear Rinaldo has more than a few lessons to learn.