Charlie McAvoy sits just two minutes for clear headshot on Josh Anderson
They got it wrong. Real wrong.
Well that’s not entirely true, because the infraction was classified correctly as an illegal hit to the head. But how Boston’s Charlie McAvoy escaped with just a minor penalty after delivering this clear and suspension-worthy clean-pick headshot on Columbus’ Josh Anderson in Game 6 on Monday night is just madness.
Bruins get very lucky with this only being 2 minutes.
Charlie McAvoy will be getting a call from the league pic.twitter.com/dAqJVOfyHn— Evan Marinofsky (@emarinofsky) May 7, 2019
This wasn’t one official who may or may not have seen the extent of the hit making the call, either. The entire officiating crew huddled up and decided that McAvoy deserved only two penalty minutes after delivering the sort of blow that is suspendible every time out.
McAvoy will have a hearing for his actions, putting his status for the start of the Eastern Conference final very much in jeopardy.
This is not much more than a few weeks after a separate NHL officiating team noticed the severe end result of a routine battle off a faceoff between Cody Eakin and Joe Pavelski, and then sent Eakin to the box for five costly minutes anyway.
How much that might have impacted the call on McAvoy, those officials will only really know.
Or they just weren’t paying attention.
Jody Shelley, who’s working between the benches, just said in an interview broadcast throughout the building that the referees told the #CBJ bench that they didn’t see the hit.
— Tom Reed (@treed1919) May 7, 2019
Wait, so why the minor penalty then?
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