Golden Knights center crushes ref into the boards, forcing him to leave with injury

4 hours ago 1

It was a classic case of wrong place at the wrong time.

One of the linesmen during the Golden Knights-Wild playoff game late Sunday night was heading toward the boards as a puck was cleared up the ice.

Skating over to try and stop the puck was Vegas center Brett Howden. But the puck made it by.

The problem? Howden was skating too fast to stop. And he absolutely crushed the linesman into the board.

One of the linesman got a massive hit and had to be escorted off the ice 😬 pic.twitter.com/v6zR4wNnOC

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 21, 2025

The man in stripes eventually had to leave the game.

Howden certainly laid the boom on the official.

It's not a great way to make any friends in stripes, even though this was clearly unintentional.

Things probably could've ended even worse for the ref, and the same can be said for Howden.

Hockey players and refs are tough, so maybe they'll both make it back out on the ice soon enough.