Former Boston Bruins forward to have a hearing with the NHL Player Safety following sucker punch

The flashpoint came during Saturday's 4-3 Flames loss, when a late first-period scrum was cooling off and linesmen were separating bodies. Beecher threw a punch that caught McCarron in the face and dropped him.

Nashville's bench looked furious, and head coach Andrew Brunette was visibly hot after the sequence. Beecher later fought Predators defenseman Nicolas Hague in a game that never really stopped chirping.

For Bruins fans, it's a weird headline to read, because Beecher's Boston identity was always the simple stuff. He was the 30th overall pick in 2019, and he just played 78 games last season with three goals and 11 points.

As a Bruins watcher, I keep thinking of Beecher as a straight-line worker, not a guy you're tracking for supplemental discipline.

Calgary claimed Beecher off waivers on November 18, and he's mostly lived on the fourth line and the penalty kill since. He has two assists in 19 games as a Flame, and he's already at 29 penalty minutes.

That's why the optics here matter, the league treats punches during a separation differently than a normal fight. Pro Hockey Rumors noted the contact didn't happen inside a fight sequence, which is the line Player Safety tends to draw.

Now Calgary waits, and so does Beecher, who's on a one-year $900,000 deal and playing for his next contract. If a suspension lands, it's another jolt for a Flames team already trying to stabilize its bottom-six matchups.

However this goes, I'm rooting for Beecher to learn from it fast, because the best version of his game is honest, quiet, and useful.