MONTREAL — Kiefer Sherwood has a message for the NHL Department of Player Safety.

Sherwood, after all, knows something about hitting people. Last season, the winger set an NHL record, tracked league-wide since 2005-06, with 384 hits.

So when Sherwood calls Charlie McAvoy’s Thursday hit to his head “dirty and unnecessary and just stupid on his part” — it’s not any common complaint.

Sherwood added: “If anyone can attest to being physical — humbly — I know, obviously, you know where you’re aiming for. There’s a difference between hitting to be physical and hitting to hurt, and I don’t think any of my hits last year were ever to the head.”

McAvoy hit Sherwood high with seconds left in the San Jose Sharks’ 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins at TD Garden, setting off a small melee.

McAvoy laid a hit on Sherwood with 10 seconds left and then a BRAWL ensued 💥🥊 pic.twitter.com/ZKJZCnxqJ3

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 13, 2026

Sherwood was animated after morning skate at Bell Centre, both when talking about the “bullshit” hit and how his San Jose Sharks teammates stood up for him.

He also hopes that NHL can do a better job of addressing head shots.

Kiefer Sherwood, on how the San Jose Sharks jumped to his defense after the McAvoy hit:

Yeah, that’s a huge sign. Obviously, the hit was dirty and unnecessary and just stupid on his part, but it was cool to see everyone stand up for each other. That’s something that we’re growing here as a family and as a team.

It’s going to be important to have that brotherhood for the playoffs here and our push here. We have to stick together through the ups and downs, and we’re only going to continue to build on that.

Sherwood, on the hit:

The game’s 4-2, 10 seconds left, he knows where he’s heading. He didn’t stick out his arm, but he still made contact straight to my head, which is bullshit.

If anyone can attest to being physical — humbly — I know, obviously, you know where you’re aiming for. There’s a difference between hitting to be physical and hitting to hurt, and I don’t think any of my hits last year were ever to the head. There’s a difference when, like I said, you hit to be physical and to be hard against, it’s a whole other situation when you hit to the head, and that’s the problem I have with it, because now you’re talking about hitting to injure and hitting for potential stuff down the road.

That’s something that the game needs to address, because for the players’ sake, our well-being and our health and safety is more important than a power play or one-time thing in that game. That’s the only issue I have with it, is the contact to the head.

Obviously, the game is out of hand, he doesn’t need to step up. Whatever, I get it, you play to the whistle. I don’t blame him for playing hard until the whistle, but I do have an issue that the impact was straight to my head.

Our team responded and stuck together, and like I said, we’ll continue to stick together through the second half here in [our playoff] push.