Did Dahlin deserve to be ejected for hit on Zegras?

Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin was given a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct after checking Philadelphia Flyers forward Trevor Zegras late in the second period of Wednesday’s 5-2 Flyers win.

Dahlin with the hit on Zegras and then pandemonium breaks out 😳🥊 pic.twitter.com/zrqqU6Dxbh

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 4, 2025

The check looks ugly on first glance, but not everyone agrees that it was game-misconduct worthy, including, apparently, Dahlin himself.

We’re gonna assume Rasmus disagreed with the call 😂 https://t.co/BXlFoRkXyN pic.twitter.com/Ik1kMdvoHd

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 4, 2025

The fact that Zegras got up from the hit without injury could simply be a bit of good fortune, or it could be a hint that his crash and collapse was more performative than he’d like to let on.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed Dahlin’s hit on Zegras, and whether to decision to hand Dahlin a game misconduct was the right one.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Garbage or not on this call on Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin? Hutts, we’re going to roll the clip here. He was given five and the game for this hit on Trevor Zegras. Listen, I am someone who is all for cracking down on hits from behind, I think it’s a matter of time until someone gets really badly hurt in the NHL. We’ll have to address it the same way we addressed head shots 10 years ago. I don’t know if this one’s worth five. I think Zegras goes down a little easily. What do you think?

Carter Hutton: Yeah, it’s a bit of a sell job. These are plays that happen all the time. You start to lose respect for a guy, like even the other night when he was head-faking Connor Clifton trying to bait him into something. It’s just a respect factor. What I hate about situations like this, you lie on the ice and if you’re hurt, you’re hurt. But he’s not. Now his team responds, and now they’re outnumbered, and someone on your team is going to eat something because you want to lie down on the ice. I don’t love that, I don’t think you disrespect the game. You can tell Rasmus Dahlin’s a pretty true player. I had the chance to play with him for three years. He’s not too happy about it. Once you get that rap you lose a lot of respect.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…