Jacob Trouba’s NHL break has just been extended by a few days.

The verdict is in from the NHL Department of Player Safety and as expected, Jacob Trouba has been suspended two games for his reckless hit on Mark Stone of the Ottawa Senators.

This means the Jets defender will miss Tuesday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as thanks to the week long player’s break the following Tuesday against the Minnesota Wild. Trouba will not be eligible to join the Jets lineup until their contest Friday, March 3rd against the St. Louis Blues.

Midway through the third period of Sunday’s Jets contest against the Senators, Jacob Trouba took aim at the Sens forward:

Stone has not only had a history of being hit with big collisions when facing the Jets, but more importantly a history of concussion issues including having suffered one earlier this season. He remained down on the ice a considerable amount of time after the hit and obviously did not return to the game. His status for the Sens going forward is unknown as Monday was an off-day for Ottawa.

Trouba received a two minute “checking to the head” penalty on the play. He has been known to dish out some punishing hits over the course of his young NHL career – a handful of hits drawing raised eyebrows at the very least – but until today officially had a clean record with the NHL.

Of course, Jets fans are quick to point out that the Trouba hit is very similar to one that Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins dished out to captain Blake Wheeler this past Thursday:

It’s worth nothing that on both plays the puck was at least in the general vicinity of where the hit took place but in both cases had been moved forward with the hits coming a second or two later. Malkin’s hit does differ in that there was a significant amount more of actual body contact and an argument can be made that the head was not the main target Malkin had been aiming for.

Malkin does leave his feet on the hit to propel himself forward which also drew ire from Jets fans, but that alone was not enough to warrant a further look from the NHL DoPS who likely saw the added body contact of Malkin – not to mention the fact Wheeler did return to the game – as a reason not to look any further into it.

When asked about the relation of both hits, Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun discovered that the league viewed both hits differently:

Many Jets and hockey fans in general would disagree with that viewpoint.

For what it’s  worth, TSN’s Bob McKenzie has a fantastic breakdown of the two hits and some insight into the penalties actually called and more into what some in the NHL think about hits such as the kind Malkin delivered to to Wheeler.

While few will question that Trouba deserved a suspension for such a careless hit on a vulnerable player – both in terms of having just played the puck as well as past medial history – the inconsistency that the Department of Player Safety continues to display this season (and really in the past five seasons) is a large source of frustration.