from Frank Seravalli of TSN,

During Monday night’s seven preseason games with available statistics, 41 minor penalties for slashing were whistled, for an average of nearly six per game.

Though it is not a direct comparison, since last year’s preseason data is not available, there were 791 slashing minor penalties called last regular season, for an average of just 0.6 slashing calls per game.

That is a nearly 10-fold jump, sure to snap players to attention to the NHL’s new zero-tolerance policy. There were four slashing infractions in the first period alone of the Rangers-Islanders exhibition at Madison Square Garden on Monday. No preseason game so far has featured fewer than four slashing calls.

The idea is to police slashing more stringently from the outset of the preseason to allow players seven or eight games to adapt before the regular season when the same standard will be in place....

Not only will referees be more focused on slashing, incoming NHL senior vice-president of player safety George Parros said recently that egregious slashes will be met with supplemental discipline.

“We’ll be looking at them more,” Parros said on Sept. 7. “If they seem to be more intentful or directed towards the fingers and hands with greater force, we’re going to be looking to do something: fines, suspensions, whatever it might be.

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As always, consistency will be the key.

added 5:26pm, Video- Brad Marchand on the faceoffs, watch below...