Quote:
Rule 41 - Boarding
41.1 Boarding - A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player who checks or pushes a defenseless opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to hit or impact the boards violently or dangerously. The severity of the penalty, based upon the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee.
There is an enormous amount of judgement involved in the application of this rule by the Referees. The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize contact. However, in determining whether such contact could have been avoided, the circumstances of the check, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the check or whether the check was unavoidable can be considered. This balance must be considered by the Referees when applying this rule.
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Checks every box for a boarding penalty. In conjunction with the ref's discretion, I totally support that being a major.
Way back in the day when I was training to be a referee we were taught that if you think the player attempted to use the boards as a weapon, then it was boarding. Not very scientific, I know, but it seemed plausible.
Looks to me like that is exactly what Watson was doing, and it looked fairly predatory to boot.