The Round 1 series between the Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadiens has become as heated off the ice as it is on it.

The teams' current off-ice spat began Thursday when Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault downplayed the injury Brendan Gallagher suffered - which was later diagnosed as a broken jaw - after Matt Niskanen cross-checked him during Game 5.

"In my estimation, Gallagher got up and seemed fine, he was talking to the referees, the whole time that he was on the bench he was talking to our players for the rest of the game," Vigneault said, according to The Athletic's Arpon Basu.

"Gallagher's a very competitive player, but I don't think it's Nisky's fault he might not be as tall as the other guys, but he competes as big if not bigger than anybody else," Vigneault continued. "It just seemed (like) a hockey play that unfortunately cut him a little bit."

Niskanen later received a one-game suspension for the incident while Gallagher was ruled out for the remainder of the series. Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin didn't like how Vigneault downplayed Gallagher's injury before knowing the severity of the ailment.

"I was expecting more and I was extremely disappointed that AV would make a comment about a player's injuries without knowing the extent of it," Bergevin said Friday, per Sportsnet's Eric Engels. "Brendan Gallagher will be missing an extended period of time and will be eating his meals out of a straw, and I don't wish that on anybody, and that includes the Flyers' players."

If the Canadiens win Game 6 to force a Game 7, Niskanen will be back in the lineup for the winner-take-all tilt. Gallagher, meanwhile, may have surgery Friday and will be "out a while," Bergevin added.

"The authority of the NHL has made their decision and we'll live with it. We'll respect the decision," Bergevin said. "It's unfortunate that our player, Brendan, is going to miss an undetermined amount of time while their player will miss one game. I don't have more comments on it."

As part of the NHL's explanation for why the suspension is not more than one game, the league said, "the sudden and significant movement by Gallagher contributes to the fact that this blow lands on his head, rather than somewhere else on his body."

Bergevin was not a fan of that assessment.

"We agreed to disagree," he said, according to Basu.

Game 6 is set for Friday at 7 p.m. ET.

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