The NHL should be discouraging the violence between the Lightning and Panthers

Over 300 combined penalty minutes in two preseason games between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers is remarkable, and the NHL Department of Player Safety must step up to address these dangerous incidents.

A passionate rivalry is one thing, but putting a player's health and safety on the line in a game that's essentially meaningless in the scope of an entire season is something that should not be encouraged by the NHL.

In the first period of Saturday's game alone, four major penalties alongside game misconducts were slapped on players from both sides. When all was said and done in the Panthers' 7-0 victory, 67 penalties were handed out over the course of the game.

The chaos kicked off just over two minutes into the opening frame. Tampa's Scott Sabourin found Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad like a heat-seeking missile and landed a clean hit on him behind the Florida goal, which sent Ekblad crashing to the ice. Things went awry when Ekblad got back to his feet and was met with a crosscheck followed by a flurry of punches from Sabourin.

Ekblad left the game following this and did not return, though there has been no word yet as far as any potential injuries go. But the fact that Ekblad was taken out of a low-stakes matchup in the first period is not in the spirit of what the preseason should be about: getting the roster ready for the regular season and testing out variations of the lineup to see which players have earned a spot on the roster.

That incident set the tone for the remainder of the game, which saw 274 penalty minutes handed out in total. More chaos ensued when Florida's Carter Verhaeghe battered Zemgus Girgensons along the boards with a high hit. That led to yet another pile-up reuslting in two game misconducts.

The festivities were just a continuation of the heated matchup on Thursday, which resulted in a 5-2 Lightning win. One fine was already handed out for the fracas in that game -- Panthers forward AJ Greer was given the maximum fine possible under the CBA for roughing against Tampa Bay's Brandon Hagel.

In that case, Greer carelessly hit Hagel up high with a cross-check that resulted in a two-minute minor but was quickly followed up by a roughing minor and a 10-minute misconduct for the fight that developed after.

It was exciting at first, but at a certain point, the NHL executives have to take a step back and ask themselves whether this type of showing is good for the game. It would appear that it's nothing more than dangerous and meaningless violence that could result in players being removed from the action due to injury before the regular season actually starts.

Some of the players don't see much of an issue with what has gone down in these two games. Take Verhaeghe, for example, who shared with the media before Saturday's game that he felt it was a sort of bonding experience for his Florida teammates.

“I think it just brings the group together,” Verhaeghe said to reporters. “Everyone’s sticking up for each other out there, it just builds camaraderie, guys are stepping up. It was a great game, but hopefully we can play more hockey next game."

That, they did not, and neither team should not be rewarded for what went down in those two matchups.