Jonathan Quick calls out Brady Tkachuk over 'garbage' comments.

I gotta be honest here, I don't think veteran Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick is going to be convincing too many people of anything here, but at least I can admire him for sticking up for a teammate.

Over the weekend there was a pretty controversial incident involving Quick's teammate, Los Angeles Kings forward Brendan Lemieux, and Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk. During a scuffle between the 2 men, Lemieux took a sizeable bite out of Tkachuk's hand and is now facing a lengthy suspension as a result of his actions.

As you might imagine the Ottawa Senators captain was none too happy about Lemieux's decision to bite him and as a result he unloaded on the Kings forward in his comments following the game. Tkachuk's words were harsh, referring to Lemieux as a "joke" and calling him "gutless" as well as a host of other things, but again he had just recently been the victim of a bite from a grown man.

It seems that, in spite of the circumstances, there are members of the Los Angeles Kings locker room that did not appreciate what Tkachuk had to say about their teammate. One of those is the aforementioned Quick, who on Sunday gave Tkachuk a piece of his mind when asked about the situation. Quick began by calling Tkachuk's comments 'garbage' before going on a defense of Lemieux.

“I have my own opinion about what happened, or did not happen last night, and what I can tell you is that any comments that were made about Pep were garbage,” Quick said. “He’s a valuable player who sticks up for his teammates. We all support him and I’d rather have him on my team over that kid any day of the week.”

It is all well and good for Quick to suggest that he has his own opinion about the matter, but at the end of the day this is a pretty cut and dry case. There's no question that Lemieux did bite Tkachuk, and the in person hearing that Lemieux has been offered by the National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety is an indication that the league itself views it that way.