"If you look at the hit, he used his arm," said goalie Byron Dafoe. "It wasn't an elbow, he didn't look for it, he didn't try to slash him in the head, he just made a good hit."

Good? No. High? Yes. The league has been cracking down on hits to the head and for obvious reasons. In fairness on the other side, McLaren is a player who has been through a lot. He has weathered many hurdles in his career because of serious injuries. Many of those have come as a result of the punishing style he plays, something he would freely admit. Despite his impressive resume, he had no previous suspensions on his record although it's likely the high profile nature of this hit will taint him for years to come.

"I think the whole thing has been blown out of proportion," said Bruins' veteran defenseman Sean O'Donnell. "I've only been here a year but it gets around the league that Kyle is not known as a dirty player. I think Mac's record speaks for itself. When I played on the West Coast, I never heard one person say he was a dirty hitter."

Some have compared McLaren's tactics to Toronto's Tie Domi. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"That's ludicrous," said Dafoe. "Tie Domi went out of his way to hurt [Scott Niedermayer]. Kyle was just doing his job as a defenseman, to take a hit on a forward attacking him with the puck. It was completely different. Kyle has never had a history of this as far as suspensions, Kyle throughout the entire game had no reason to go after anybody, let alone Zednik. So show me the motive. It was just an unfortunate incident."

Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Boston Globe is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.