A major subplot in the Pittsburgh Penguins' preseason opening thrashing of the Detroit Red Wings was Brooks Orpik's knee on Johan Franzen.
Orpik was immediately challenged to a fight for the hit by, ironically, Todd Bertuzzi, who proceeded to admit that he didn't even see the hit, before Orpik was assessed 20 penalty minutes and a game misconduct.
Franzen left the game with what was later diagnosed as a charley horse. He'll be out of action for a a few games and should be ready to go well before the start of the regular season. The promising news for Franzen, however, hasn't diminished calls for Orpik to be suspended from Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock nor Franzen himself:
"It's terrible," Franzen said. "Stupidest play I ever seen. He lifted his foot up and put his knee inside of my leg.... I just put the puck back down deep and was trying to go get it, and he threw his knee out." ... Does Orpik deserve to be suspended? "Yeah," Franzen said.
As for Orpik, he blamed it on rust (skip to about 20 seconds):
While calls to suspend a player from an opposing team generally seem to hold little merit to higher ups in the NHL, and though it's not likely, it wouldn't be a shock to see Orpik get hit with a short suspension during the preseason for his actions, which were largely unseen, since the game was not televised.