TAMPA, Fla. — It’s easy to pick on NHL executives when it comes to player safety.

The issues, after all, are complex. The fans, without a doubt, are partisan. The stakes, everyone knows, are high.

Also, and this is likely the most important factor, league executives are a bunch of cowards.

None of this should come as a surprise after the events of recent days. The hostilities between the Lightning and Panthers have been renewed, and the level of danger has grown noticeably alarming. It is not an overreaction to suggest we are witnessing future cases of CTE in real time.

You can blame this on the Panthers. That’s an obvious solution. Designated Florida bully A.J. Greer cross-checked, high-sticked and punched an unsuspecting Brandon Hagel twice in the face last Thursday. Hagel left the game and hasn’t been seen on the ice since.

Or you can blame the Lightning. There’s justification for that, too. It was Hagel who crushed Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov with a late shoulder in Game 2 of the playoffs six months ago. That hit ignited multiple instances of retaliation from both sides.

As for me, I blame the suit-wearing weenies in the NHL offices.

Ostensibly, they are the adults in the room. They are in charge of integrity. Of safety. They’re supposed to be the dispensers of justice.

And yet they forsake it all because violence sells. Because they blindly protect the league’s image as the toughest sport in the land. Given the responsibility of safeguarding careers and preserving competition, the league brings the hammer down by sending players to bed without dinner.

Why not cue up “Slap Shot” on the video board every night and be done with it?

Trust me, this is not an overreaction. When Florida’s path to the Stanley Cup is routinely littered with concussed opponents, that’s a problem. When the Lightning bring in minor-league players specifically to inflict pain on Florida, that’s a problem.

Look, I enjoy a hockey fight as much as the next dweeb. There’s something primal about two competitors dropping their gloves and trading punches. Sometimes, it involves legitimate grievances. Sometimes, it’s intimidation. Sometimes, it’s boys being boys.

That’s not what we’re seeing between Tampa Bay and Florida.

There is a viciousness to this rivalry that is out of control. And it’s been that way for quite some time.

This is not players policing each other or protecting teammates. This is assault. And the tools in boardrooms who excuse it as part of the game are more to blame than players or coaches defending themselves in the moment.

This should have been handled a long time ago.

The Panthers, much like the Lightning a few years earlier, discovered success in the postseason by learning to get tougher. They finish checks, they own the crease, they give opponents no room to skate. That’s all good stuff.

But somewhere along the way, the Panthers crossed a line. Sam Bennett gives Toronto goaltender Anthony Stolarz a concussion with an elbow to the head — knocking him out of the playoffs — and hears nothing from referees or NHL officials. And this was after sucker-punching Boston’s Brad Marchand in the face in the previous postseason. Which was a year after he concussed Toronto’s Matthew Knies in the playoffs.

That’s not coincidence, that’s a style of play. And the league gives its tacit approval by allowing it to happen year after year.

One-game suspensions and $3,000 fines are a joke. That’s a small price for taking an opponent out of a series and signaling to everyone else that they better be looking for elbows as well as the puck.

The problem, in a case such as Tampa Bay and Florida, is that the violence is eventually cranked up. Matthew Tkachuk roughs up Nikita Kucherov in Game 1, so Hagel hits Barkov in Game 2, so Tkachuk takes out Jake Guentzel in Game 3 and Aaron Ekblad gives Hagel a concussion in Game 4 while Niko Mikkola rams a prone Zemgus Girgensons into the boards.

That kind of escalation in the postseason is bad enough, but what we saw in the past week is beyond the pale.

Hagel had supposedly paid the price for his hit on Barkov, but Greer wouldn’t let it rest. The assault on Hagel last week would not be tolerated in any other legitimate sport. It had nothing to do with hockey. It was all violence and intimidation. IN A PRESEASON GAME.

Greer, who has a history with this sort of thing, was literally messing with Hagel’s career and post-hockey quality of life.

And the league was so horrified it fined Greer the price of a nice dinner.

So the Lightning responds by calling up a bunch of minor-league players and turning the next game into a 60-minute brawl.

This is dangerous, foolish and unnecessary. And not only is the NHL failing to stop it, they are giving tacit approval by acting as if it’s no big deal. And the players association is complicit, as well. They don’t want their members fined or suspended, but they’re OK with scrambled brains.

You want to fix this? Make suspensions hurt more than cheap shots.

All it takes is one 10-game suspension in the postseason to get everyone’s attention. And if that doesn’t work, the next one gets a 20-game suspension. When it costs teams on the scoreboard, they’ll adjust their mindsets quickly.

Unfortunately, league executives aren’t nearly as tough as the players on the ice.

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