Sometimes you see a penalty during an NHL game and you’re positive, in the moment, that the penalty you just saw will result in a major and/or a game misconduct.*
In real time, that was the reaction we had to seeing Brett Ritchie of the Dallas Stars go high on Sean Monahan of the Calgary Flames on Monday night.
And yet … it was a minor penalty for high-sticking.
Maybe we have it all wrong. The Dallas Stars intermission analysts seemed to believe so. They said Ritchie was trying to protect himself on the play … by connecting with Monahan’s head with either his forearm or the butt-end of his stick.

Which is nuts. Freeze the video at around 38 seconds: The puck is away, and Ritchie literally has his stick extended towards the head of Monahan.
Maybe the NHL will have a say about this after the game. But this play appeared to cross the line from self-defense, if that's what it was, to predatory.*