Emotions ran high in Pittsburgh’s 5-1 loss to Buffalo on Thursday at PPG Paints Arena.

“We’ve got to control what we can control,” Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse said. “There’s going to be games where things don’t go our way. I thought that was the case for some different factors tonight, and we got to make sure that we’re focusing in and staying level.”

Evgeni Malkin was given a match penalty, which, per the NHL rulebook, “shall be imposed on any player who deliberately attempts to injure or who deliberately injures an opponent in any manner. In addition to the match penalty, the player shall be automatically suspended from further competition until the Commissioner has ruled on the issue.”

Being without Malkin for any length of time would be far from ideal, especially with Sidney Crosby already sidelined due to injury (though he has started skating on his own).

“(Malkin) is a big part of this team, and he’s been playing great hockey for us, and gives us a different dimension to our offensive game,” Erik Karlsson said. “If for whatever reason, whatever happens, I think that we’ve shown throughout the year that we’re a pretty deep team. We’re going to have to change some things, probably, moving forward, if we miss both those guys. But it’s nothing that we haven’t done before.”

The sequence started with Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin slashing Malkin on the hand, which he didn’t like. From there, they had some back-and-forth around the Sabres zone before Malkin slashed Dahlin up high with his stick.

The referees review all plays that result in the assessment of any match penalty for the purpose of confirming (or modifying) their original call on the ice. After they watched the tape, Malkin was officially assessed the match penalty, and he left the game just 38 seconds into the second period. Dahlin was given two minutes for cross-checking, as was Malkin.

The Sabres went to a five-minute power play, and the Penguins’ woes continued. They challenged for goaltender interference when Josh Doan made contact with Arturs Silovs and impeded his ability to make a stop on Josh Norris.

But it was unsuccessful, as the league ruled that Kris Letang had caused Doan to interfere with Silovs. That had the Penguins frustrated, and understandably so.

“He touched [me] already prior to the push,” Silovs said. “It was clearly goalie interference.”