NHL says "sending a message" not permitted, but they don't really mean it

Are you listening, Coach Stevens?

TSN has a story about Daniel Carcillo meeting with the league today at 3:00 to discuss his "incident" with Max Talbot at the end of regulation.

TSN doesn't state what happened, but here's exactly what happened:

Carcillo was on the ice to take a faceoff with 7 seconds left in the game. He had his left hand low on the stick and the right hand all the way at the top. He swung through the faceoff with his left, and followed through with his right, punching Talbot with his right fist / butt end of the stick.

The biggest problem with this is that Carcillo was put on the ice by Coach Stevens. Do you know how many faceoffs young Daniel has taken as a Flyer? I checked. The answer is TWO. This was the third.

The bigger issue here is that the NHL made a point of saying they weren't going to permit "message sending", as noted in the TSN article:

Prior to the start of the playoffs, the NHL told all coaches and general managers there was to be "no message sending" late in games where the score had been decided. Carcillo's presence on the ice at that stage of the contest combined with the contact with Talbot could be considered "message sending."

So, my question is, why isn't the NHL talking to John Stevens? Anyone watching the end of the game last night saw that the Flyers were CLEARLY trying to "send a message". You don't take three minor penalties, along with Carcillo's punch and the two-handed slash by Coburn that started his little scrap with Guerin in the last few minutes of a game unless you're trying to "send a message".

If the NHL really wants to clean up the crap, suspend Stevens for a game or two. He's the one putting these guys on the ice. He's the one who put Carcillo in that position.

My guess is the NHL doesn't want to make the effort - they just want to get credit for saying "let's all play nice now".

UPDATED - The NHL has suspended Carcillo for one game and fined Coach Stevens $10,000.