With a majority of the focus on Matt Niskanen's cross-check to the head of Sidney Crosby early in Game 3, Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey wants to talk about what happened immediately before the incident.

Namely, Alex Ovechkin's slash on the Pittsburgh Penguins captain

"The thing everybody’s overlooking - and we’ll never, never know because Sid got hit twice - is the two-hander he took to the back of the neck and the head by Ovechkin," Coffey, a former Penguin, said Tuesday on 590 The Fan, per Luke Fox of Sportsnet.

"When Crosby was falling down, that could’ve been the initial blow that hurt him. Nobody knows, and nobody’s talking about that. That was a brutal two-hander by Ovechkin to Crosby when he was going to the net."

Here's the incident:

The question, in Coffey's mind, is whether Crosby's injury was suffered on the slash, the cross-check, or both. Niskanen won't face a hearing for his actions, but the NHL's attention should be on Ovechkin's stick work, Coffey argues.

"I've got nothing against Ovechkin. I think he's a great player. (But) I honestly think that's what the league should be looking at," he said. "We don't know if he was out of it when he was falling down. We'll never know. Sid's the only guy that knows that."

Niskanen received a five-minute major for cross-checking and a game misconduct, while Ovechkin went unpenalized.

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