One New Jersey Devils player must pay thousands for actions against New York Rangers

The New Jersey Devils completely dominated the New York Rangers close to two weeks ago. They beat down their rivals 5-0 in what was a wonderful Christmas present for Devils fans. It also ruined most of the Christmases for Rangers fans. The game was chippy, but nobody really expected it to have further discipline.

On Friday, the NHL came down with extended punishment for Dougie Hamilton, saying he embellished so egregiously that he deserved a $2,000 fine.

Hamilton is seen in the video being hooked by Brett Berard. It looked like Berard's stick definitely hit Hamilton in the midsection. So, the fact that he fell to show that he was hooked got him an embellishment penalty. He already served a penalty for the embellishment, and this fine came because Hamilton had been warned for embellishment back in November against the Edmonton Oilers.

New Jersey Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton was fined $2,000 for embellishment against the New York Rangers.

There are a few strange details here. For one, this is a really long time to wait to levy this fine. Hamilton made this move almost two weeks ago. Most of the supplemental punishments come within 48 hours of the actual penalty.

It's also strange that the Devils are facing this extra discipline in a week where Toronto has been very bad to them. The referees have made bad decisions on the ice, and the replay officials have been even worse. So while there have been some terrible calls, including a knee-to-knee collision involving Timo Meier and Martin Necas that many thought Necas was embellishing himself. The Devils ended up serving a major penalty and lost the game because of it.

Hamilton makes around $122,000 per game this season, so the $2,000 isn't going to impact his bottom line too much, but it's the principle of the matter. Hamilton was clearly hooked on the play, and the officials are setting a precedent that we will now expect other teams to deal with.