Henrik Lundqvist marked his return to the New York Rangers' crease on Thursday by nearly being decapitated with a flying elbow.After missing the past four games in a weird, risky and unprecedented benching, King Henrik made his first start in goal for the Rangers since Dec. 6 in Dallas against the Stars. In classic Lundqvist fashion, he was more than solid in a 2-0 road win—despite receiving a Texas-sized smackdown halfway through the first period at the hand (or shoulder, or elbow?) of Stars forward Cody Eakin.As a result, King Henrik had to leave the game to have parts of Eakin's elbow pad removed from his jaw.Not quite, but the Rangers' netminder did exit briefly to be evaluated under the NHL's concussion protocol. He returned, but as a result of his visit to the dwellings of the evil, mysterious "dark room" for baseline testing, Lundqvist was not awarded the shutout in his team's victory. Instead, it was the first shared shutout in Rangers history according to Elias—although Antti Raanta faced exactly zero shots during his five minutes of relief.Eakin received a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct, and will face a disciplinary hearing with the NHL on Friday afternoon. The result will most likely be a lengthy suspension—probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of five-plus games can be expected.Former Chicago Blackhawk, and now Montreal Canadien forward Andrew Shaw was suspended three postseason games for this drubbing of Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith during a playoff series in 2012.And who could forget the demolition of goaltender Ryan Miller after he was greeted by a massive hit off the shoulder of Milan Lucic. Shockingly, Lucic was not suspended for that attempted murder of Miller.Lundqvist appears to be fine and he looked marvelous in his 27-save effort last night, despite the near-death experience. The only thing that can keep the King out of the lineup now is another benching.[YouTube]Update:Eakin received a four-game suspension after having a phone hearing with the NHL's brutally unpredictable discipline committee on Friday afternoon. He will miss the team's next four games for violating rule 42.1, unless he files an appeal.The rule states: "A goalkeeper is not 'fair game' just because he is outside the crease area. The appropriate penalty should be assessed in every case where a player makes unnecessary contact with a goalkeeper. However, incidental contact, at the discretion of the referee, will be permitted when the goalkeeper is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact."According to the NHL's explanation of the incident, Eakin did not make incidental contact with Lundqvist, but rather delivered an intentional and forceful blow. The league deemed that he made no reasonable effort to avoid the Rangers' goaltender and intentionally made contact with his head. Lundqvist returned to the game and was cleared of any serious injury, which played a factor in the length of the suspension.
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