Six months but only one regular season game removed from their last meeting, the rivalry between the Kings and Sharks reached a near-boiling point on Wednesday night as San Jose’s 5-1 win was marked by four fighting majors, four roughing minors and a match penalty assessed on Milan Lucic when Los Angeles’ power forward hit Logan Couture away from the play, near the Sharks’ bench, after Couture had laid a big hit on Lucic upon exiting the penalty box.

Darryl Sutter said after the game that the hit that “at best, that’s a minor penalty.”

When the league intervened, no supplemental discipline was assessed, though the league did speak with the Kings’ hockey operations, and that conversation was to be relayed to both Lucic and Dustin Brown, who previously in the game had also issued a controversial hit on Couture. The play was reviewed by the league, and Lucic will be eligible to return to the lineup when the Arizona Coyotes open their season Friday night at Staples Center (7:30 / FOX Sports West / KABC 790 / I Heart Radio).

By that point, the shellshock of the opening night’s animosity will have evaporated. But when the team met with the media on Thursday, Lucic still felt strongly about how his encounter with Couture developed, and the aftermath of the opening night loss.

Milan Lucic, on whether his reputation played into the decision to assess a match penalty:

I think that’s why I got a match. It’s just because of who I am. If I would have made that hit, and someone came after me the same way, he wouldn’t have gotten a match It just comes with who you are, and they review all that stuff, and there’s nothing that’s come of it, because like I said last night, I didn’t cross any line. Believe me, if my intentions were to hurt him, I would’ve hurt him. But it’s just like anything. It’s like a schoolyard or anything, you know? You’ve got to stand up for yourself when the time is right. If this was 10 years ago and a play like that happened with a minute left, five-one, it would be a lot messier. … Again, I didn’t like the play, I didn’t appreciate the play. I know his comments saying, ‘I didn’t know some players weren’t allowed to be hit,’ I have no idea why he would say that about me, because I get hit as much as I hit, so that’s a dumb comment on his part, but whatever. It just adds fuel to the fire for the upcoming games.

Lucic, on whether the different treatment gets in his head:

It can be frustrating at times, but you try not to think about it too much, because at the end of the day, if that wears on you, then you’re more focused on that than playing, and I’ve learned to focus on the playing part more than the referees. The referees are going to make the call to the best of their abilities, and I’ve always supported referees making the calls to the best of their abilities. It’s a fast game, and they’re trying to do their best as much as we’re trying to do our best to keep it clean and stay within the rules. It definitely is frustrating at time. It’s definitely not the first time it’s happened to me, and it’s not going to be the last, but at the end of the day, my focus more is not on me getting a call because of who I am, it’s going out there and playing, focusing on what I actually need to be focusing on.

Lucic, on Thursday’s practice:

…Taking the emotion out of the game, you view it from a different standpoint, and I think the biggest thing, especially from a game like last night, is you learn from all the mistakes that we made. Like I said, you deal with what went wrong the first thing in the morning with video and all that type of stuff, and then you go out there and have a good practice and start focusing on what you need to do to get better. I think as of right now, the focus was, after this morning, from all the mistakes that we made was having a good practice and getting better today so we can get our game going in the right direction tomorrow. Like I said, it’s definitely a big wakeup call that we need to be much better, and we just need to check better and play with more emotions, and I think everything else will come.

Lucic, on absorbing hits when a player leaves the penalty box:

That’s actually the first time I’ve ever been in a situation like that. Usually you’re aware of how much time is left on the clock, but a lot of times you’re not coming up the ice with a guy stepping right out. One of those quick plays, you don’t see it coming, and it kind of gets you. I mean, I don’t think there’ve been any real big, big injuries from guys coming out and stepping in and hitting guys, but as far as going low like that, especially when someone doesn’t see you, it’s definitely not in my repertoire to pull something like that off.