Nick Cousins Defends His Controversial Pre-Game Actions Against Leafs Goaltender Anthony Stolarz

On Friday morning, TSN's Darren Dreger shared a surprising report, confirming that the NHL was investigating some pre-game antics that occurred between the Leafs and Senators on Thursday night that involved Senators players shooting pucks at Stolarz.

Shortly thereafter, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman revealed footage of the incident in question which involved Nick Cousins shooting a puck at Stolarz as he was in the midst of his warmup routine along the boards near center ice.

This morning, Cousins was asked about the investigation and the incident itself, explaining that Senators head coach Travis Green spoke with him about it, but that it was a playful attempt to get his former teammate off his game.

The two were teammates in Florida, capturing a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers, which validates Cousin's statement - as does the numerous times we see former teammates chatting with each other during warm-ups and giving each other taps as they skate past.

Sens players have been doing their best to aggrivate the Leafs netminder, but it only led to Stolarz getting the better of Ridly Greig in Game 2 and posting three consecutive wins to begin the series.

Not to defend the Senators forward, but this appears to be blown way out of proportion and it will be interesting to see what --if anything -- the league does in terms of discipline for Cousins and the Senators ahead of Game 4 on Saturday.