Kiefer Sherwood wants player safety to be addressed in the NHL.

After Charlie McAvoy hit Sherwood in the three weeks ago, the San Jose Sharks forward called it “dirty and unnecessary and just stupid on his part.”

“I wasn’t really coming at it from a shot at the Department of Player Safety,” Sherwood clarified recently. “I’m looking at more the actual play and the stuff to the head. That stuff needs to be addressed eventually in our game, and we need to get that out of the game. Doesn’t do anyone good to try to injure or have those blatant shots to the head.”

Since then, Connor McDavid called for a general review of player safety in the league, following just a five-game suspension for Radko Gudas for a season-ending knee-to-knee hit on Auston Matthews.

Radko Gudas has officially been suspended the maximum 5 games (for a virtual hearing) from this hit on Auston Matthews.

Matthews was declared out for the season with a grade 3 MCL tear pic.twitter.com/39O1fXBMW7

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 14, 2026

Recently too, AJ Greer, controversially, was docked just three games for this dangerous hit on Connor Zary.

Connor Zary leaves the game following a hit from A.J. Greer pic.twitter.com/8JVCrVp0hb

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 21, 2026

Hits are a part of hockey, and Sherwood didn’t deny that. But he did call out a specific difference from your every day hits – which Sherwood himself has made a career out of – and more dangerous hits.

“I’m all for playing hard, obviously, and playing to the whistle, but I think there’s a way to go about it,” Sherwood said.

And there’s an argument that Sherwood goes harder on hits than anyone – he set an NHL record last season, tracked league-wide since 2005-06, with 384 hits. But as Sherwood said after the McAvoy hit, he doesn’t believe any of those 384 were hits to the head.

There’s also an idea in hockey that it’s a player’s responsibility to keep themselves safe and avoid hits. But Sherwood pushed against that being a hard-and-fast rule.

“You got to know who you’re out there against. And I think obviously the onus is on the player too, to keep your head up. But it’s such a fast-paced game, it’s impossible to always – you can’t always just protect yourself, it’s also on the initiator,” Sherwood said. “But you try to understand who’s out there on the ice and understand if a guy is a little bit more physical. If it’s like a guy like Gudas, and you’ve got to have your head up and be a little bit more ready when you get the puck.”

So, how can the NHL go about cracking down on dangerous hits?

Sherwood and McDavid admit it’s a difficult task, and people will always disagree with the Department of Player Safety’s decisions.

But Sherwood said there needs to be a precedent set that those types of hits aren’t okay.

“With the hit on Matthews, five games probably isn’t enough,” Sherwood said. “That guy, he’s done it before, he’s probably not going to think twice. But if you suspend him 10, 15, 20 games, or even to the playoffs, probably you’re not going to do it again.”

Sherwood compared it to putting a kid in timeout, as opposed to just a slap on the wrist.

The San Jose Sharks’ winger also thinks it’s important for players to speak out.

“You got to have people that stand up for what’s right, and you got to have people that might ruffle some feathers, maybe just to get the message across that you got to protect the players and their health,” Sherwood said.

The San Jose Sharks and Sherwood are set to face Gudas, who’s dealing with a lower-body injury, and the Anaheim Ducks twice to close this season, on Apr. 1 and 9.