McCarty Ends Drought

Darren McCarty snapped a ten day streak without a playoff scrap when he dropped the gloves with Cody McCormick in the Red Wings’ 5-1 win over the Avalanche Saturday afternoon. It was McCarty’s first fight since making his way back to Detroit late last month.

McCarty felt forced to send a message to ensure that Colorado players weren’t planning on pushing his teammates around. McCarty surprisingly found a taker in McCormick, who issued Mac a challenge in an attempt to inject energy into an Avalanche team that was trailing by four goals at the time and are now down 2-0 in the series. The veteran first made sure that McCormick wasn’t trying to goad him into taking a penalty.

From M-Live:

“He asked me to go, I was making sure he wasn’t trying to draw me into a penalty,’’ McCarty said. “There wasn’t much of a staredown, but there was a drawn-out drop-the-glove part. I think we laid them on the ice. It was like, ‘OK, are we going to do this?’ Because you don’t want to do anything silly at this time of year.’‘

Playoffs update

Elsewhere in the league…

- The Habs and Flyers are currently deadlocked 1-1. Things are bound to even nastier this evening courtesy of Tom Kostopoulos’ gloved punch on Kimmo Timonen last game. Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau claims that Timonen started to mock his opponents after a goal. Derian Hatcher says that Carbonneau’s remarks are ‘typical’ of him. No word yet as to whether or not Riley Cote may be in the lineup tonight for Philadelphia.

- The Penguins lead the Rangers 2-0. Hal Gill dropped the gloves and went after Sean Avery due to a slash to Marc-Andre Fleury as time expired yesterday. A scrum ensued but penalties were not handed out.

- The Stars beat the Sharks 5-2 last night to take a 2-0 lead in their series as well. No fights in the first two games.

ECHL book contest ends tonight

If you haven’t already noticed, we’re giving away a copy of the book 20 Years of the ECHL signed by ECHL Commissioner Emeritus Patrick J. Kelly. Those who are still interested in entering the giveaway - see this thread for details. Valid entries will be taken up until 12:00 AM EDT tonight. Winners will be chosen at random tomorrow.

Videos added

Cody McCormick vs Darren McCarty Apr 26, 2008
Jon DiSalvatore vs Bryan Muir Apr 18, 2008
Chris Durno vs Chris Harrington Apr 18, 2008