Bruins' Charlie McAvoy handed a six-game suspension: The NHL’s familiar problem with consistency in player safety

Bruins' Charlie McAvoy handed a six-game suspension: The NHL’s familiar problem with consistency in player safety originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here . Charlie McAvoy’s slash on Zach Benson was reckless, emotional, and fully deserving of supplemental discipline — but the NHL Department of Player Safety’s handling of the entire sequence once again exposed just how inconsistent and difficult to decipher player safety can be when precedent, context, and retaliation collide.

The league announced Tuesday evening that the Bruins defenseman will serve a six-game suspension to begin next season after his late-game slash on Benson during Boston’s Game 6 elimination loss to the Buffalo Sabres . McAvoy was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct on the play with less than 90 seconds remaining, effectively ending both his night and the Bruins’ season in one ugly moment. There is no real argument that McAvoy should have escaped punishment.

You cannot swing your stick down on an opponent in retaliation, no matter how heated the situation becomes. The NHL had to respond, and six games falls within a range that feels reasonable. In fact, considering McAvoy’s history, it honestly could have been worse.

This marks the third suspension of his NHL career, following previous bans for illegal checks to the head against Josh Anderson and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Repeat offenders are supposed to face escalating discipline, and given that background, the Department of Player Safety easily could have justified pushing this closer to eight games — maybe even more. When Frustration Becomes The Real Infraction But what complicates the conversation is the sequence that led to the retaliation in the first place.