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.