Player safety has no choice but to act after what happened in Montreal
The Bell Centre end-of-game scrum Sunday night produced two clips that the NHL's Department of Player Safety is going to be watching by morning.
Arber Xhekaj caught Sam Carrick with a right hand. The 34-year-old Sabres forward went down, and it was not a fair fight scenario.
Carrick's hands appeared tied up. Xhekaj's didn't. That's the part the league cares about.
The second clip is uglier. Josh Norris punched Zachary Bolduc while a Buffalo teammate held the Canadiens forward in place.
Same fact pattern as the Ridly Greig play that earned a suspension in Round 1 against Carolina. The precedent is right there.
Bolduc is having a real series, 1 goal and 4 assists across 9 playoff games at plus-5. He's the kind of player Montreal can't afford to lose to a wrist or jaw issue.
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Two reviews, one decision the Sabres won't enjoy
Norris is the bigger name with the bigger consequence. His cap hit sits at 7.95 million, and he's been a Lindy Ruff staple in this series.
Take him out for a game and Buffalo loses a top-six center against the deepest part of Montreal's lineup. That math is brutal heading into Game 4.
Xhekaj is more replaceable on paper. He played 65 games in the regular season at a 1.3 million cap hit and finished minus-8. But the punch he threw isn't the kind of thing the league lets slide twice.
His playoff plus-minus tells a different story. The 25-year-old defenseman has been a plus-4 across 8 postseason games for Martin St-Louis.
Both teams have a hearing risk now. Both teams know exactly how Greig's case played out a few weeks ago.
The question is whether Player Safety treats these as matched or weighs the held-arms angle on Bolduc more heavily.
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Game 4 goes Tuesday at Bell Centre. One of these benches is showing up shorter, and right now the smart money is on Buffalo's.
Montreal leads series 2-1 going in, but the lineup card might be the real story by Tuesday morning.
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MAY 10, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Cutter Gauthier | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Mitch Marner | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Alex Newhook | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alexander Killorn | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Beckett Sennecke | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Kirby Dach | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Ian Moore | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||