WASHINGTON (AP) — Evgeni Malkin will not have a disciplinary hearing for his shoulder to the head of T.J. Oshie during the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ 2-1 loss at the Washington Capitals.Two people with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press that Malkin would not face a hearing with the NHL department of player safety and therefore won’t be suspended. The people spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the league does not announce the lack of a hearing.With Pittsburgh on the power play early in the third period Womens Tomas Hertl Jersey , Malkin passed the puck and lifted his right shoulder into Oshie’s head and kept skating. The officials conferred before deciding to give Malkin a five-minute major penalty for an illegal check to the head and eject him from Wednesday night’s game.Oshie, who returned and scored the game-winner with 1:14 left, was not mad at Malkin for what he perceived to be an accident.“He maybe thought I was coming to hit him and so he threw the reverse shoulder out there, which I try to do that all the time,” Oshie said. “I just wasn’t expecting it being on the PK.”League officials agreed with Oshie’s assumption that Malkin was bracing for contact, not trying to deliver a vicious headshot. Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said after the game he was not concerned about the star Russian center facing further discipline, though Washington’s Todd Reirden left open the possibility.“That’s definitely a blow to the head,” Reirden said. “Those are things we’re trying to remove from the game. … We’re just really fortunate that it wasn’t something that was more serious and he was able to come back.”Malkin, the Penguins’ leading scorer, will be eligible to play Saturday against the Arizona Coyotes. Pittsburgh has lost five in a row and has just one point during that stretch.Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby stopped 41 of the 42 shots he faced for his first win since Oct. 22. He got some help from the post on almost a half-dozen occasions, but Holtby also turned in his best performance of the season.“I felt comfortable as the game moved on,” Holtby said. “I got some breaks, too, early on. The posts obviously was a break we weren’t getting in the past.”Holtby kept the Capitals in the game Adidas Jaroslav Halak Jersey , and Oshie provided the heroics. He left the game early in the first period after taking a stick to the face from Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta and needed two stitches to close a cut next to his left eye.Oshie returned for the second period but had to leave again after the hit from Malkin. He returned for the second time with about five minutes remaining.“My face is a little messed up, but I’m feeling pretty good now,” Oshie said. “He caught me there, and it is what it is. I passed my concussion test, went out and won the game.”Pittsburgh outshot Washington 42-22 and got 20 saves from Casey DeSmith in his first career start against the Capitals. He was powerless to stop Oshie’s goal after a pass from John Carlson gave him a wide-open net.Late in a sloppy game full of turnovers and whiffs on the puck, Oshie just wanted to make sure he didn’t shoot so high he missed the net. After missing most of the first and third periods, Oshie made the most of his only shot in 13:51 of ice time.“I barely saw him on the bench there,” center Nicklas Backstrom said. “He came back right in time. That’s what big players do. They come back, they score the game-winner.”NOTES: F Zach Aston-Reese made his season debut and LW Garrett Wilson made his Penguins debut after being called up Tuesday. … Penguins C Derick Brassard missed his sixth consecutive game with a lower-body injury. … Capitals D Brooks Orpik missed his fourth game with a lower-body injury. … Capitals C Nicklas Backstrom was honored before the game for recording his 600th NHL assist. He’s the first player in franchise history to reach that milestone. … NASA engineer and Apollo 13 flight director Gene Kranz was in attendance and got a standing ovation when shown on the video boards during the second period.UP NEXTPenguins: Look to stop their skid Saturday at home against the Arizona Coyotes.Capitals: Continue their home stand Friday against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It took less than two weeks as general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers for Chuck Fletcher to see what he needed to see with coach Dave Hakstol.The Flyers were still making too many mistakes, still not playing up to their talent level and it was all too clear the message wasn’t getting across from their fourth-year coach. With the team mired in a four-game losing streak, Fletcher fired Hakstol on Monday and named Scott Gordon as interim replacement.“To my eyes there was a disconnect between what he was preaching and how the players were playing,” Fletcher said. “We need a new voice. We need to have the coaching staff (give) the message to the players and hopefully have the players receive that message and that’s why I decided to make the move.”Not much has improved since the team fired general manager Ron Hextall just after Thanksgiving. The Flyers have lost five of six, 11 of 14 and are in last place in the Eastern Conference. They went 1-3-1 on the road trip Fletcher said he’d use to evaluate Hakstol, the rest of the coaching staff and the team in general.Hakstol is the fifth coach fired this season. Hired by Hextall from the University of North Dakota in 2015 Adidas Steven Kampfer Jersey , Hakstol took the Flyers to the playoffs twice in his three full seasons, but they lost in six games in the first round each time. The Flyers under Hakstol in 2016-17 became the first team in NHL history to miss the playoffs after having a 10-game winning streak, and last season were also the first to make the playoffs after a 10-game losing streak.The inconsistency ultimately cost Hakstol his job.“He’s a great guy,” winger Jakub Voracek said. “We made the playoffs two of three years. We had ups and downs. He was a new coach, first time coaching in the NHL. You learn obviously over the span of those years. It’s always tough when somebody’s let go.”It was not immediately clear when the Flyers would hire a full-time coach, though Fletcher indicated he expects Gordon to work through the remainder of the season. Three-time Stanley Cup-winning coach Joel Quenneville was fired by Chicago last month, but Fletcher said he has not gotten permission from the Blackhawks to speak with Quenneville and hasn’t talked to him in roughly two years.Gordon is an NHL head coach for the second time after parts of three seasons leading the New York Islanders. He has spent the past three-plus seasons as coach of the American Hockey League’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Philadelphia’s top affiliate.“He’s got some creative ways of thinking (about) the game,” said defenseman Andrew MacDonald, who played for Gordon with the Islanders. “We had a really young team in New York when I was there — transitioning from an older team to a younger team. It was kind of a tough situation for him. He was trying to bring in new ideas with speed and some of his philosophies. I really liked Scott as a coach. He’s a good man, he’s got good systems and I think he’ll do a good job for us.”Hextall’s inability to turn things around was among the reasons he was unexpectedly dismissed Nov. 26. Hakstol at the time got a reprieve while team President Paul Holmgren searched for a GM.Hakstol’s final game was a 5-1 loss at Vancouver on Saturday night. The 50-year-old coach from Warburg, Alberta, said he felt his players battled all the way through the blowout loss. He added it’s “not good enough, obviously Adidas Zach Bogosian Jersey , because the end result is what matters.”“It’s been four years and you build relationships,” captain Claude Giroux said Monday. “I think for one guy to kind of pay the price for what’s going on, it’s not fair, but it’s the business side of it.”Philadelphia hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1975 and was ready to try to contend after several years of retooling. Hextall signed winger James van Riemsdyk to a $35 million, five-year contract in the offseason but never addressed the goaltending position beyond injury-prone Michal Neuvirth and Brian Elliott.Philadelphia went 134-101-42 under Hakstol, who coached the third-most games in franchise history behind Fred Shero and Mike Keenan — and the most for the Flyers without winning a playoff series.“There’s been a lot of pressure on him certainly even before I was here and he handled himself with dignity, with class, a straight-up guy,” Fletcher said. “I just have a tremendous amount of respect for him.”NOTES: The Flyers recalled top goaltending prospect Carter Hart from the AHL, and he could make his NHL debut Tuesday against Detroit with Gordon behind the bench. … Fletcher said goaltender Brian Elliott would be out at least through Jan. 1 with a lower-body injury.