NHL Fight Night: November 1st
Old time hockey returned to the NHL last night, and I loved every second of it. Fighting had been at a dismally low level so far this season, and most of the games were emotionless and boring. That all changed last night, however, as there were 13 fights in 11 games, including 5 in the Anaheim, L.A. game. I know this is not going to keep up, but for one night, I was a happy hockey fan again. I'm sure NHL executives are frantically making phone calls this morning trying to figure out how to make sure this never happens again, but the fans were going wild. Even NBC, who most fans think is a leader in pushing the no fighting agenda, was promoting the action.
Drop the gloves ????#SJSvsARI pic.twitter.com/G7vlF54Bpo
— NHL on NBC (@NHLonNBCSports) November 2, 2016
Overall it was great night in the NHL, especially for fans of physical hockey like me. If you're also a fan of gloves off hockey, I'll take you on a tour of last night's action.
The first stop is in Columbus where the Dallas Stars and Columbus Blue Jackets were doing battle. Antoine Roussel is one of the biggest pests in the NHL and was taking runs at Blue Jacket players. Nick Foligno came in and addressed the issue appropriately.
The next stop is in New York. The Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders reacquainted themselves in a physical affair. Early in the first period, Calvin de Haan rocked Jonathan Drouin with a huge hit, then in came Ryan Callahan.
We stay in New York for another scrap. This time between Brian Boyle and Travis Hamonic. Tampa Bay had just gone up 4-0, so Hamonic wanted to spark his team. He just ended up getting rag-dolled.
We move on now to Ottawa, where the Carolina Hurricanes picked up their first fight of the year. Phil Di Giuseppe and Matt Puempel dropped their gloves in the first period.
Down to Florida for the next couple of scraps. First, we have former teammates reacquainting themselves when Jimmy Hayes and Derek MacKenzie dropped the gloves.
Next we have Adam McQuaid playing policeman like he always does. Shane Harper took a big run at Torey Krug, and Darth Quaider was having none of that. The beatdown was on at that point.
There was a bit of a break in the action before the west coast games started, but we did get one fight in a Central Division game. Austin Watson and Gabriel Landeskog fought in the third period of the Predators vs. Avalanche game.
Then we got the west coast games and man was it wild. First stop is in Arizona for the Coyotes and Sharks game. Only one fight this game, and it was early in the game. The usual suspects dropped the gloves here, Michael Haley and Ryan White.
Then out to L.A. we go for the wildest game of the night and of the season. Anaheim and L.A. hate each other, that is well known. They had a ton of fights last season, including a brawl, and they picked up right where they left off. First we had Jared Boll and Kyle Clifford for a center ice main event.
Kyle Clifford was not done either. He and Kevin Bieksa would scrap later in the period. This was the best individual fight of the night in my opinion and is certainly in the running for fight of the week.
Finally, things got really fun. It was 4-0, a blowout game, and these teams went off. With about 10 minutes left in the game, a three fight line brawl broke out. This is the first brawl of the regular season and it was great to see. Finally some big time action in the NHL.
Whew! What a night in the NHL. I know this won't keep up, but maybe it will increase the fighting a little bit beyond the dismal pace that was going before Tuesday. This was my favorite night of the year so far, and proved that fighting is not completely dead.
