Sometimes it would be easier if there was no context, just the black and white of it, or at least what we presume to be the black and white of it.

Without such context, it would be easier to start swinging for the fences on the lamentable encounter between veteran Arizona Coyotes forward Jay Beagle and Anaheim’s young scoring star Troy Terry late in game won handily Friday by Anaheim and nearing the end of a game in which Terry’s dynamic teammate Trevor Zegras scored a flashy lacrosse-style goal against the grossly undermanned Coyotes.

Without context, it would be easy to join the fray burying longtime NHLer and Arizona analyst Tyson Nash who turned a fairly typical late-game melee into a cause celebre by saying that, by “skilling it up,” the young Ducks should have expected a punch in the mouth, which is what they got courtesy of Beagle.

But then we called Nash and we were reminded that one of the reasons it seems so difficult for the game to chart a clear path forward in terms of its identity is that it’s not black and white. It’s complex.

Nothing justifies a young man who never even got his gloves off getting pummelled so badly that he couldn’t suit up for Sunday’s game against Edmonton.

Surely we should all be able to agree on that, no?