A lot has been made of Friday's altercation between Arizona Coyotes forward Jay Beagle and a pair of young Anaheim Ducks forwards in Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry. For those who may have missed it, here's what happened.
Following the game, Trevor Zegras sounded off on Beagle, though he did not call him out by name, stating that it was embarrassing for a veteran grinder to go after a young star like Terry and unload on him the way that he did.
The weekend came and went with no comment from Beagle, but on Monday, the Yotes forward finally broke his silence on the matter, stating that it was the actions of both Zegras and Terry that caused the chaotic altercation.. not his.
Beagle admitted that he did not know it was Troy Terry who had grabbed ahold of him after he delivered the cross check to the back of Zegras. He just felt as though the second someone grabbed him, it was a fight.
The damage to Terry's face was significant, as you can see from the photo below, but, thankfully, he is expected to make a full recovery.
Hockey is a contact sport. It's a rough business for sure. I think the biggest issue that people have with this altercation is that Terry never even dropped his gloves and the common theme among NHL fans is that Beagle should have known better. That said, the game comes at you fast. I wouldn't necessarily consider Beagle to be a dirty player, but the optics of this one were not good. I think most will agree on that.
