Alexis Lafreniere gets tossed in the very first period!

You just can't be doing this if you're New York Rangers forward Alexis Lafreniere, especially not when your team is in a life or death battle for their playoff hopes.

On Monday night, the Rangers clashed with the Tampa Bay Lightning with playoff implications for both teams coming into this game. The stakes for the Rangers were much higher however, with the Blue Shirts 6 points back of the Montreal Canadiens coming into this one for the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference.

Unfortunately things have not gone well for the Rangers with the Lightning striking in the first period with 3 quick goals, 3 goals that may have led to an ill-advised display of frustration from Alexis Lafreniere.

Lafreniere had engaged National Hockey League referee Chris Rooney in a verbal altercation while on the Rangers bench earlier in the period, receiving a stern warning from Rooney at the time, but Lafreniere was unwilling to let things go. After an icing call, Lafreniere skated towards Rooney and stared menacingly at the NHL official, appearing to mouth something at Rooney in the process.

While we don't know what was said, Rooney was having none of it and he immediately sent Lafreniere back to the locker room with a 10 minute misconduct, meaning that Lafreniere won't be able to return until nearly half of the second period has expired.

A very questionable decision during such an important game for the Rangers, one in which they already have to overcome a 3 goal deficit.