It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but the second-round series between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins has been chippy as hell. In fact, it might be even nastier than most people expected.

Game 3 in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night brought plenty of animosity. Most of it surrounded Tom Wilson and his inability to go a game without almost taking someone's head clean off their body, but the Penguins were no saints either. Their captain might have spit on a guy!

During a second-period scrum, Sidney Crosby got engaged in a verbal disagreement with Evgeny Kuznetsov and had to be dragged away from the Capitals forward by Alex Ovechkin. But as Crosby is being dragged away from the confrontation, it looks like he might have launched a loogie in Kuznetsov's general direction.

Take a look:

It's not entirely clear whether Crosby actually spit at Kuznetsov, whether he was just bluffing or whether the head snapping motion was just a product of Ovechkin yanking on his collar. But Crosby's mouth seems to suggest that spitting is certainly in play here.

There was an official between the two parties at the time of the incident and Crosby wasn't penalized, so maybe we're just seeing things. Then again, the NHL's officials haven't exactly done a bang-up job this postseason. 

In any case, if the league wants to conduct an independent investigation into this, I know a guy with experience in these kinds of matters.

Anyway, this series has been out of control.