Hathaway Appears to Land a Deliberate Knee on Leafs' Jake McCabe, Contributing to Injury

Philadelphia Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway had a relatively rambunctious first period after laying out a few big hits, taking some in return, including one from Simon Benoit, and then dropping the gloves with Jake McCabe which led to the defenseman's exit.

The play initially started when Hathaway was making a bee-line towards the Toronto Maple Leafs' goal before he tangled up with McCabe as he ran into Dennis Hildeby.

The referees were going to initially call a goaltender interference minor on just McCabe received a roughing minor after baiting Hathaway into a fight, negating the Leafs' first power play of the night.

At the end of the fight, Hathaway brought McCabe to the ice, but as they went down, his knee appeared to come up and connect with the veteran's head, which forced him to the locker room. The Maple Leafs immediately ruled McCabe out of the game with an upper-body injury as a result.

Upon further review of the fight, could Hathaway have deliberately landed the knee on McCabe? While it's very hard to make that call, Hathaway's knee made a jerking motion as they landed on the ice, something that didn't necessarily need to be done.

Everything happened so quickly, but if you take a look at his left knee, you can make the argument that it could've been purposeful. Hathaway also has a history of suspensions and fines and plays a very pest-like game that can drive the other team - and their fan base - crazy, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Nevertheless, that left the Maple Leafs down a defenseman for the final 2 periods. McCabe has been a key contributor on the back-end all season with 11 points, a plus-10 rating, and 21:15 ATOI.

He finished the game with 7 PIMs, 1 hit, and 7:12 TOI in the first period alone.