Its hard to defend.
I feel like you do see him at the last minute pull up and turn a bit and that isn't really how you line someone up
Its certainly not a cross check like I had been seeing people say before I watched it. As someone who has played for the last 30 years and run into my fair share of people by accident, you have 2 hands on your stick, when you do see someone come in your initial reaction is pretty much to always bring your hands up and your stick happens to be there.