Arber Xhekaj punches an NHL official in the face on Sunday.

Montreal Canadiens enforcer Arber Xhekaj may be in some trouble after this incident.

On Sunday, during a heated clash between the aforementioned Canadiens and the Boston Bruins, Xhekaj appeared to accidentally punch a National Hockey League official during a wild scrum that came off the back of a clean hit.

Now to be clear Xhekaj did not appear to intentionally strike the official but instead was trying to throw a punch at Bruins forward Mark Kastelic as the official was attempting to separate the two men. Unfortunately the punch did clearly catch the official in the face and he reacted as though it had as well, immediately dropping his head and putting his hand on his helmet in a protective motion.

I do feel for Xhekaj in this situation as the entire scrum was a result of a clean hit he delivered to Bruins tough guy Trent Frederic, with Xhekaj quickly getting swarmed by the Bruins after delivering that hit. Making matters even worse is the fact that two officials appeared to swarm Xhekaj immediately as well, in spite of the fact that he was not the instigator in this situation, which left him relatively defenseless as the Bruins came charging in.

Nonetheless the NHL takes any abuse of its officials extremely seriously and I do wonder if the league won't look to send a message given just how bad the optics of this situation appear to be.

Both Xhekaj and Kastelic received a 10 minute misconduct due to their roles in this brawl, so perhaps that will serve as enough of a punishment.