With just over a minute left in the third period of Friday night's Game 6 first-round Eastern Conference playoff game between the Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres, the result was decided. The Sabres were up 4-1 and on their way to clinching the series and first playoff series win in nearly 20 years.
As Charlie McAvoy was racing for the back for an icing call, the Sabres Zach Benson slew-footed McAvoy into the end boards. As expected, McAvoy got up and was upset with the Buffalo forward and slashed him hard. He did it so hard that he'll likely be hearing from the league, and rightfully so.
After the game, McAvoy brushed off the question about hearing from the league by saying, "I won't play another game until September, so I can't imagine it really matters much." He's not wrong, and that's quite the question after an elimination loss. However, on the other side, it's not surprising that Lindy Ruff had a comment on the situation, but failed to address the obvious.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff has interesting quote of Charlie McAvoy slash
Buffalo's head coach commented on the slash, but he had missed the obvious reason as to why it happened.
"You don't want to see the last play of the game. You don't want to see a guy take a chop like that at somebody else," said Ruff. "I think he feels that Benson tripped him on the play or took his feet out from underneath him."
You think? Here ya go, Lindy, here is the video of what happened, and I KNOW that you saw it on the screens at the bottom of your feet on the bench.
I hate this slew foot on McAvoy. But I also don’t like that retaliatory slash on Benson. Curious to see how this gets reviewed by the Department of Player Safety. pic.twitter.com/XvdKwyXXWB
— Julian McKenzie (@jkamckenzie) May 2, 2026
So here's the thing: Buffalo won the series and advanced because they are the better team. There is no debating that. The Sabres are moving on because they have better players at every position except in goal. Jeremy Swayman was the only reason there was a Game 6. However, saying that "I think he feels that Benson tripped him on the play or took his feet out from underneath him,'' is certainly a way of not putting more eyes on it for his player with NHL Player Safety.
If the roles were reversed, fans in Buffalo and Ruff would be calling for McAvoy's head, but since it's a Sabres player with the slew-foot that drew McAvoy's reaction, "Nothing to see here.''
We'll see how the league handles it, but ignoring the blatant slew-foot by Benson and commenting only on McAvoy is quite the take from the Sabres coach, who was days away from being fired earlier this season before the turnaround. The reward for Buffalo is sitting back on Sunday night and watching the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning play a winner-take-all Game 7 while they rest up for the next round.
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