Over/under on suspensions from the Leafs and Sabres?

[Chadd 916]

I understand the reasoning for giving the coach a fine, other than Clarkson he is the only one that has to come out of pocket with money. What I don't understand is that Kessell received what amounts to nothing. He is suspended for the remainder of the preseason - 3 games. There is no monitary fine because players do not get paid for preseason. He has a roster spot for the season and is not at risk of losing it so he has nothing to prove or gain in these games. He doesn't have to worry about injury or even travel. Sounds like the NHL did him a favor. You would think with the active stick he had a few days before they would have made the suspension 2 regular season games. I've never really paid much attention to Kessell but would like to know if he has a habit of swinging his stick. It will be interesting to see if players try to provoke him into slashing.

It's no coincidence that they picked the remaining number of games as the suspension length to me. I think this was a case where they let him off the hook because he was hung out to dry by both coaches and Scott. Giving him a suspension puts him on notice as well as the repeat offender list for a more serious suspension should he engage in stick swinging again. Without knowing the number of preseason games left, I expected that he would get 2-4 games. I don't think he would have gotten more if it had been a regular season incident, so when you bring it all together, it makes sense to me.