NHL suspends Rangers' Prust for Game 4

It wasn't very surprising that the NHL Sunday suspended Brandon Prust for Monday night's Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals for an elbow to the back of Devils defenseman Anton Volchenkov's helmet in the second period of Game 3 on Saturday.

But as the series continues to unfold, what was surprising Sunday was Rangers coach John Tortorella accusing the Devils of hits that were equal or worse than Prust's, setting basketball-style picks on power plays that should be called as interference and staying down on the ice after checks to draw penalties.

"Prust has played probably 300-plus games without any hearings," Tortorella said.

Prust had a phone hearing with Brendan Shanahan, the NHL's senior vice president for player safety. "He's probably one of the most honest players. I look at [Dainius] Zubrus with an elbow to [Anton] Stralman [in the first period Saturday]," Tortorella said. "I look at [Zach] Parise launching himself at [Michael] Del Zotto [in the third]. Maybe if our players stayed down on the ice, we'll get something [calls]. We tell our players: 'Don't stay down on the ice. Get up.' . . . I'll leave it at that."

But he didn't.

"And the picking on the power play, set plays," Tortorella said. "If we want to start discussing officials with the media, I have a long list here. That's a set play by New Jersey, picking, so we can't get to [Ilya] Kovalchuk to block a shot."

Tortorella, whose Rangers lead the Devils 2-1 in the best-of-seven series, went further. "Game 2 it happened . . . It's a set play. They know we're trying to block shots on a pretty good shooter. It happened to Danny [Girardi, who was tangled up with Patrik Elias], it happened to [Ryan Callahan]. I hope we look for it. So there's some gamesmanship right there, huh?"

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Devils coach Peter DeBoer, who termed the Prust hit "head-hunting, plain and simple," had a one-word response: "Comical."

The two coaches have swapped barbs during the season. On March 19 at the Garden, the Devils started their enforcers and Tortorella countered, leading to three fights on the opening faceoff. "I guess in John's world, you can come into our building and start your tough guys, but we can't do the same here," DeBoer said, referring to Tortorella starting Prust and Mike Rupp on Dec. 20 in Newark; Rupp and Cam Janssen dropped the gloves three seconds in. "He either has short-term memory loss or he's a hypocrite."

The Devils denied that they set picks or were diving. Said Elias: "Their coach suggests a lot of things. There's no one who holds on to guys or anything. You get called for that. We don't have that history as a team."

Volchenkov returned after missing a few shifts and practiced Sunday.

Prust repeated that he had no intent to hit Volchenkov in the head. "I was skating over for a routine check," he said. "He bailed out a bit and turned, it was just kind of a reaction when you're off balance. There was nothing vicious about it."

Tortorella will likely employ one of two defensemen, Steve Eminger or Stu Bickel, as a fourth-line forward.

"We can't do anything about it," Brad Richards said. "We feel there were worse things on the ice. We have to play a game. It's the same mind-set."