McDavid rips Pietrangelo for slash on Draisaitl: 'I'd like to see him suspended'

The Edmonton Oilers evened up their second-round series with the Vegas Golden Knights thanks to a convincing 4-1 win in Game 4 on Wednesday, but Alex Pietrangelo's vicious slash on Leon Draisaitl stole headlines from the game itself.

The incident occurred with 1:27 remaining in the third period and well after Draisaitl had released the puck on a shot attempt. The Golden Knights blueliner skated over to Draisaitl, raised his stick with both arms and came down on Draisaitl's upper body. Oilers captain Connor McDavid immediately rushed to his fellow superstar's defence and got into a brief altercation with Pietrangelo on the ice.

The 33-year-old received a five-minute major and a game misconduct on the play, but McDavid believes more punishment is warranted. Pietrangelo will have a hearing with the NHL's department of player safety on Thursday.

"You'd like to see it reviewed, for sure," McDavid told reporters after the game. "I would like to see [him] suspended. It's as 'intent to injure' as you can get. Time, score, clock all play a factor. He comes from over his own head and places it just kind of under Leon's chin. It's not a hockey play."

By the time the final whistle blew, a whopping 93 penalty minutes were called in the third period alone, highlighted by an extended heavyweight bout between Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse and Golden Knights blueliner Nicolas Hague. Nurse picked up an extra instigator penalty in the process, which comes with an automatic one-game suspension since it occurred in the final five minutes of the game, but the league can overturn that decision after review.

Evander Kane, Kailer Yamamoto, Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault also received 10-minute misconducts for separate incidents throughout the final frame.

After all the dust settled, the Oilers got the last laugh on the scoreboard and won the latest instalment in what's been a back-and-forth series to this point. The two teams head back to Vegas for an all-important Game 5 on Friday.