Charlie McAvoy said Zach Benson committed an "assault" late Friday night in Game 6, after the Buffalo Sabres winger slew-footed him on a late empty-net chance and sent the Boston Bruins defenseman crashing into the boards.
The Sabres were ahead 4-1 as the third period wound down when they dumped the puck deep trying to add another empty-net goal. Benson chased it with McAvoy, clipped him from behind and knocked him off balance, and McAvoy then swung his stick at Benson after the contact.
The moment landed in the middle of a Stanley Cup Playoffs series, where the handshake line waits at the end but nobody is interested in handshakes until then. It also came as Boston was headed toward another early playoff exit, a backdrop that only sharpened the reaction to a collision that was as needless as it was ugly.
Public opinion has already split on whether McAvoy was justified in responding the way he did. But the sequence itself is hard to soften: Benson’s move was dangerous, McAvoy was knocked hard into the boards, and a game that was mostly decided still managed to produce one of the night’s most combustible moments.
What happens next is not a disciplinary hearing or a scoreboard entry. It is the judgment that follows plays like this in playoff hockey, where the line between force and recklessness is thin and everyone in the building knows it.
