2008-09: Best Team Feud
 

Seemed like fighting was up everywhere even though divisional games were down. I dont know if we see as much pure team hatred consistently as we did in the past, but contention is there in a broad sense everywhere. Here's a few teams that were fond of dropping the gloves with one another.

Nominees

Philadelphia Flyers - New Jersey Devils
These two division rivals hooked up for a lead-leading 11 fights in their 6 Atlantic Division matches. Riley Cote had his hands full with Michael Rupp and the Devils calling up Pierre-Luc Leblond. David Clarkson fought the left-overs, including Andrew Alberts twice. Back-to-back games in late October led to six fights, including the Devils icing a ridiculous lineup that included Rupp, Clarkson, Leblond, and Brookbank.

Montreal Canadiens - Boston Bruins
Another rivalry that still looked and felt old-school was the ever-contentious Montreal-Boston grudge matches. The highlight was seeing Milan Lucic battle with Mike Komisarek but the teams had 6 regular season fights and added another 2 in their first round playoff series. There were mini-brawls and dirty play abounding, especially as the teams headed into the stretch run and the emotions were heightened.

Anaheim Ducks - Vancouver Canucks
Two of the toughest lineups in the West hooked up for four fun games in 08-09 that featured six fights and plenty of rough play. George Parros and Darcy Hordichuk were the higlights, as they christened three of the four games by dropping the gloves. Mike Brown was also active, fighting on both sides of the rivalry before and after being claimed by the Ducks mid-season.

St. Louis Blues - Chicago Blackhawks
It seemed like the old Norris division days when these two scrappy lineups battered one another in six hard-fought games. The highlight was a November 14th game in which there were four fights in the first period, all within 4 minutes of one another as there were stoppage after stoppage for fights. Overall the teams piled up 9 fighting majors in their season series.

Edmonton Oilers - Vancouver Canucks
The wide open games of the Northwest were best on display between the Oilers and Canucks, two of the top fighting teams in the league. They also combined for 9 fights in their 6 divisional games. The series started with a bang as a massive Steve MacIntyre hit on Mattias Ohlund led to a quick beating of Rob Davison. Mike Brown, Dave Hordichuk and Zach Stortini led the mid-season attack while Rick Rypien provided an infusion of punching power at the end of the season. Rypien-Stortini ended the series with a great toe-to-toe fight.

My Pick

Maybe the playoff series tips the scale but I was a big fan of the Bruins-Canadiens matchup. The fights were meaningful and angry, Lucic-Komisarek was great, and there were plenty of scrums throughout the series. This is a series I'd watch any day just as a fan of physical hockey.


Previous Winners

2003-04: New York Rangers – New York Islanders
2005-06: Calgary Flames – Vancouver Canucks
2006-07: Buffalo Sabres -- Ottawa Senators
2007-08: Pittsburgh Penguins -- Philadelphia Flyers

Montreal-Boston has been the poster boys for this award for two years in a row.

God damn... there were so many great nominees in fighting's best post lockout season.

The pure hatred of the Nucks/Oilers was something to behold on a seemingly nightly basis. The Blues/Hawks was just about as nasty as things could get, and definitely brought back Norris memories.

But - its all about the B's/Habs... The rivalry escalated, and then escalated again when Lucic and Komi tangled, with Komi hearing bells in his head still to this day, thanks to not one TKO, but another massive right hand in the playoffs.

In terms of fight quality, then Vancouver vs Edmonton probably takes it. But Montreal vs Boston had the most legitimate hate, and the intensity of the playoff series sealed the deal for me.

New Jersey and Philly had lots of majors,but for overall hatred all over the line-up,I gotta go with Bos/Mtl. Shift after shift of sh!t going on everywhere.

For the same reason that I voted for Komisarek-Lucic for best player feud, there seemed to be the most genuine hatred for each other between the Bruins and Canadiens. Each and every game, regular season and playoffs, seemed to be full of nastiness and was great to watch for any fan.

Boston beating up the Canadians was good to watch.

write in for Chi-Cal

How did Calgary/Columbus not make the list?

East feud between Philly-Devils

I wish TB vs NYR was in the States only. That was a rough 4 games.

Malone vs Voros
Koci vs Orr
Stamkos vs Zherdev
Koci vs Orr 2
Malone vs Voros 2
Smith vs Voros

Gotta go with Bos/Mon here. The suspense of a pending BGL/Lucic bout made it fun to tune in, but there is genuine hatred between the teams, just not enough fighters in the Habs.

Devils-Flyers. Only one of the 6 games didn't have a fight. 4 of the 6 were multi fight games.

homer vote for flyers/devils

Montreal and Boston games are always fun. More so this year, because we won.