HIGHLIGHTS
- Charlie McAvoy was suspended six regular-season games for slashing Zach Benson
- He’ll serve the ban to start the 2026-27 season
- Watch below for the play that drew the discipline
Charlie McAvoy is going to miss the start of next season.
The NHL Department of Player Safety suspended the Bruins captain six regular-season games on Tuesday following his in-person hearing in New York. The discipline comes for his two-handed slash on Buffalo Sabres forward Zach Benson in Game 6 of the first-round series. It’s one of the heftier suspensions handed down this season.
The play happened with 1:31 left in Boston’s 4-1 elimination loss on May 1. McAvoy was racing back for an icing call when Benson slew-footed him into the boards. McAvoy got up, charged after Benson, and swung his stick at him baseball-bat style.
Watch the moment that drew the ruling:
The interesting part is what Player Safety said about Benson’s part in it. The league acknowledged on its explanation video that Benson’s trip was “dangerous.” Benson got a two-minute minor on the play and no supplemental discipline. McAvoy gets six games.
That gap is the most frustrating thing about this league sometimes. The guy who initiated a dangerous slew-foot walks. The guy who retaliated misses six games and forfeits real money. The math has never really added up on these.
The suspension will cost McAvoy roughly $310,000 in salary at his $9.5 million cap hit. He served four games in 2023 for an illegal check on Oliver Ekman-Larsson and one game in the 2019 playoffs for hitting Josh Anderson. This is his third career suspension and his longest by a comfortable margin.
McAvoy himself sounded resigned about it on breakup day. “I won’t play another game until September,” he said. “So I can’t imagine it really matters much.”
He’s not totally wrong. The suspension carries over to next season, which softens the sting in real time. But there’s also no postseason discipline for him to dodge here, since Boston is already golfing.
I’d argue the calendar is the only part that helps McAvoy. The Pietrangelo slash on Draisaitl in the 2024 playoffs cost him just one game. The league does not love handing out long bans in May. McAvoy got six because Boston was already out.
The first Bruins-Sabres matchup next season is going to be chippy. Mark it down.
