Ghost of Rivalries Past

First off: huge thanks to John and Jamie for helping cover the trade deadline yesterday.  The post, albeit quiet, had a lot of eyes on it throughout the day.  Great job by them.

Anyway, there was a fight in the Red Wings at Blackhawks game last night.

Seriously.

I’m not talking about anything in the stands (I’ll assume that’s still happening), and Bob Probert and Stu Grimson weren’t in attendance that I know of.  This was a fight involving the modern day Detroit Red Wings against what some still consider a rival team in Chicago.

No matter when it happened, I wasn’t expecting names like Brett Lebda and Mikael Holmqvist to be involved, but I don’t think Wings fans are picky about such things.  For the rest of us, it’s just good to hear Mickey Redmond’s still out there.

Another divisional game between the Flyers and Islanders saw the gloves drop a couple of times.  It was a wild one with the Flyers tying it up after being down 5-2, only to lose in overtime.  The crowd, a low 11k, was still pretty loud.  Perhaps the Smyth deal will let fans know the organization is looking to win, and win now.

The Phoenix at Edmonton game wasn’t a soft affair with a few scraps in there.  Edmonton was getting frustrated at not being able to put one past CuJo on Mark Messier night and the Yotes were showing Coach Gretzky there’s some heart in that team.

Rounding out the night was a short scrap between Jason Chimera and Jeff Finger.

Last night’s fights:

Todd Fedoruk vs Chris Simon Feb 27, 2007
Darren Reid vs Arron Asham Feb 27, 2007
Brett Lebda vs Mikael Holmqvist Feb 27, 2007
Jason Chimera vs Jeff Finger Feb 27, 2007
Josh Gratton vs Zack Stortini Feb 27, 2007
Nick Boynton vs Jason Smith Feb 27, 2007
Nick Boynton vs Jean-Francois Jacques Feb 27, 2007

Deadline Day

Time for some trade coverage.

I’ll be hosting this along with Jamie Fitzgerald and John Chandler.  We’ll make today as easy to follow as possible.

Online sources

Mainstream Media:

TSN
Sportsnet
NHL Network - Live Video Stream

Blogs:

Kukla’s Korner
James Mirtle
Spector

Official

Thrashers Acquire Keith Tkachuk from St. Louis
Canadiens Trade Rivet and Fifth Rounder for Gorges and First Rounder
Capitals Trade Richard Zednik to the Islanders
Chicago Trades Smolinski to Vancouver for Second Rounder
Capitals Acquire Hedlund, Sixth-Round Pick for Nycholat
Canucks Acquire Sopel for Pair of Picks
Wings Acquire Calder In Three-Way Deal
Penguins Acquire Gary Roberts from Florida
Martin Biron Traded to Philadelphia for Draft Pick
Sabres Acquire Ty Conklin from Columbus
Sharks Acquire Bill Guerin for Nieminen, Barriball and First Round Pick
Blue Jackets Claim Boucher from Chicago
Canadiens Claim Michael Leighton Off Waivers
Wild Acquire Dominic Moore from Pittsburgh
Thrashers Claim Jason Krog Off Waivers
Capitals Acquire First Round Pick, Novotny from Buffalo for Zubrus, Helbling
Canadiens Assign Downey to Hamilton
Coyotes Trade Saprykin to Ottawa
Rangers Acquire Paul Mara from Boston In Exchange for Aaron Ward
Coyotes Claim Niko Kapanen from Atlanta
Panthers Trade Bertuzzi to Detroit
Ducks Acquire Brad May from Colorado
Thrashers Acquire Dupuis from the Rangers
Coyotes Ship Yanic Perreault to Toronto
Avalanche Acquire Scott Parker For Draft Pick
Stars Acquire Norstrom, Pushkarev and Draft Picks from Los Angeles
Islanders Acquire Ryan Smyth from Edmonton
Blues Acquire Boyes from Boston
Predators Send Lehtonen to Buffalo for a Fourth Round Pick
Penguins Acquire Kwiatkowski From Florida
Penguins Acquire Nolan Schaefer from San Jose
Kings Send Jason Ward to Tampa Bay
Flames Acquire David Hale From New Jersey
Blackhawks Acquire Nikita Alexeev from Tampa Bay
Capitals Send Heward to Los Angeles for a Conditional Draft Pick
Lightning Acquire Joe Rullier from Anaheim

Timeline of the day after the jump.

Continue reading "Deadline Day"

More McGrattan and Peters

Some of the past fights between these two rivals:

Andrew Peters vs Brian McGrattan Nov 18, 2006
Brian McGrattan vs Andrew Peters Apr 5, 2006
Brian McGrattan vs Andrew Peters Feb 4, 2006
Brian McGrattan vs Andrew Peters Nov 2, 2005

Last night’s game:

Andrew Peters vs Brian McGrattan Feb 24, 2007

Take Two

Is Eight Enough?  The final game of the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators series last night wasn’t a letdown.  Heavyweights Andrew Peters and Brian McGrattan met up in the follow-up to the brawl on Thursday night, and “Keg Sparker” Chris Neil took on Adam Mair after an invitation or two.

Nine fights in eight games, six coming in the final two.

Eight games.  We were told that was too many, but you have to know fans will tune into sixteen at this point.

Unlike the NY Rangers and NJ Devils, the previous “wish we had more of this” series, the Sabres and Sens have at least some chance of meeting up in the playoffs.

The fights:

Andrew Peters vs Brian McGrattan Feb 24, 2007
Adam Mair vs Chris Neil Feb 24, 2007

Ian Laperriere went with Tom Kostopoulos in a battle of cut-and-paste last names - or “The Fight of the Spelling Bee” if you will.  The bout kept Lappy in the lead for FMs in the NHL.

The leaders list was active.  Besides Lappy and Andrews, Cam Janssen having a loooong fight with John Erskine and Colton Orr drew blood from Jody Shelley in another good fight.  A scrap between Mark Bell and Wayne Primeau topped off night.

Another leaders list item: the Ducks traded Shane O’Brien and a third round pick to the Lighting for Gerald Coleman and a first rounder.

The rest of the fights of the night:

John Erskine vs Cam Janssen Feb 24, 2007
Jody Shelley vs Colton Orr Feb 24, 2007
Mark Bell vs Wayne Primeau Feb 24, 2007
Ian Laperriere vs Tom Kostopoulos Feb 24, 2007

The viewing list I normally link up will be in a follow-up post.  Topics include: a listing of Sabres-Sens articles and blog posts, Georges Laraque and where he might wind up, and the plethora of fight-related articles that have popped up in the past few days.

An Update on Updating

Cable modems are great when they work.  Shame mine’s been absolute crap the past week.

I didn’t get to do a thing tonight until just now and I don’t trust this thing will be good for long.

Tops on the agenda:
- Update log
- Post Reich-Tarnasky fight from last night

After that:
- Get the downloads updated (might be rough if connection is still shakey)
- Update Buffalo-Ottawa post, there’s a ton of articles and blog posts to get to

If not now, then late morning hopefully.  I still have some instigator posts coming too.

Server notes:

Yes, yesterday morning was painful.  Sorry about that.  Some adjustments had to be made to the server setup to get things running smoothly again.  This happened right after I said I’d do the hardware udpates over the summer.  Murphy’s Law in effect.  Updates will be coming soon, but either way, things shouldn’t get that rocky again.

Update 845pm: My connection’s getting better.  Just in time to start to try and get things going for tonight.  If it holds up, all will be updated tonight.  Thanks for your patience.

Ottawa and Buffalo Brawl

If a picture is worth a thousand words, last night’s brawl must be worth a thousand four-letter words.  Sabres coach Lindy Ruff was certainly letting them fly with Sens coach Bryan Murray.

The spark:

Chris Neil vs Drew Stafford Feb 22, 2007

The brawl:

Adam Mair vs Anton Volchenkov Feb 22, 2007
Ray Emery vs Martin Biron Feb 22, 2007
Ray Emery vs Andrew Peters Feb 22, 2007
(note: the video is the same for all)

Other fights from last night:

Todd Fedoruk vs Tim Gleason Feb 22, 2007
Mathieu Roy vs Jody Shelley Feb 22, 2007
Jean-Francois Jacques vs Ole-Kristian Tollefsen Feb 22, 2007

Tim Gleason gave Todd Fedoruk a good fight.  Fedoruk, despite a scrap against Andrew Peters just two days ago, still looks rusty from his time away from the fighting game.

Let’s do it again

The Sabres play the Senators again on Saturday.

I’m sure Brian McGrattan will be dressed for this one.

Scheduling fun

I wrote about Saturday’s great divisional games, and this week the unbalanced schedule is basically “working”.  It took some time, almost two full seasons, but divisional rivalries have suddenly exploded.

The Rangers-Devils action from earlier in the week led to a title in the NY Daily News you wouldn’t have expected a couple of months ago: Eight not enough for rivals

I’m sure the schedule will still be modified after next season, but if divisional games continue to be heated contests, it’ll only be a slight modification instead of a huge overhaul.

Last howl for Laraque

The word in Pittsburgh via ESPN Radio 1250AM is the Penguins have made a trade with the Phoenix Coyotes for Georges Laraque.  Laraque still has to waive his no-trade clause for the deal to be completed.  Big Georges was scratched for last night’s game against the Calgary Flames.

The Arizona Republic doesn’t have any done deal reported, but does publish: Laraque could be dealt before deadline.  The traded hinted at is with the Pens, something I’ve written a few times in Quick Hits recently.  It became apparent by the All-Star break coach Gretzky didn’t feel like he was getting what he expected from BGL.

Downloads

There’s a delay for the video downloads update.  They will be updated within a day or two.

Pops No More

Just a reminder: there are no pops being served from this site anymore.

Continue reading "Ottawa and Buffalo Brawl"

Quick Update

Just letting everyone know I’m making adjustments to the server setup as quickly as possible to handle all the traffic.  Sorry about the temporary slowdown.

The vids are up on the fight pages:
Jean-Francois Jacques vs Ole-Kristian Tollefsen Feb 22, 2007
Mathieu Roy vs Jody Shelley Feb 22, 2007
Todd Fedoruk vs Tim Gleason Feb 22, 2007
Chris Neil vs Drew Stafford Feb 22, 2007
Adam Mair vs Anton Volchenkov Feb 22, 2007
Ray Emery vs Andrew Peters Feb 22, 2007
Ray Emery vs Martin Biron Feb 22, 2007

Youtube seems to be on and off with the brawl vid.  It’s happened before and generally stabilizes after a short while.

Pop-free

For a while now I’ve been phasing out the pop under ads.  There was one left for a while, and now it’s gone.  hockeyfights.com is now a pop-free website.

If you get any pops while viewing this site, please let me know.

More later…

Cover That Five Hole

California Goalie Moons BYU Hockey Crowd

A University of Southern California hockey goalie put on a show, but it had nothing to do with stopping shots.

Mickey Meyer rode his stick like a horse, dropped his bulky pants, mooned the crowd and slapped his buttocks during a game against Brigham Young University, police said.

via Japers’ Rink

Someone needs to restart the EHL and sign Meyer up.

I Remember You

RJ Umberger wasted no time going after Brian Campbell.  Less than two minutes into the game, Umberger found Campbell and the two dropped the gloves.  If you don’t know why, this should explain it.

There’s been a lot of “blame” for that hit.  Campbell shouldn’t have taken him out so hard, Umberger should have had his head up more, but in the end there’s a reason that’s called a suicide pass.  You can thank Niko Dimitrakos for that part.

The fight was Campbell’s first in the NHL.

A couple of minutes later Todd Fedoruk went with Andrew Peters in what turned out to be a heavyweight grappling match.

The other fight of the night was between Colton Orr and Cam Janssen, their second of the season (here’s the first).  The two are definitely getting to know each other.  The Devils play the Rangers again on Thursday night, the conclusion of the Hudson River Rivalry, at least for the regular season.

Last night’s fights:

R.J. Umberger vs Brian Campbell Feb 20, 2007
Todd Fedoruk vs Andrew Peters Feb 20, 2007
Colton Orr vs Cam Janssen Feb 20, 2007

Instigator could be changed

The GMs have decided they will make a suggestion to both the competition committee and board of governors to have the automatic suspension attached to the instigator penalty start at five games instead of three.

It’s not a rule change, just a recommendation.

Trade talk

Penguins make trade game-plan

The Penguins are believed to have an interest in Montreal Canadiens defenseman Craig Rivet, and they have also asked about enforcer Georges Laraque, but as of last week the Phoenix Coyotes were asking too much.

More:

The Stars’ Barch cashes in his chance
Fightin’ Mad That Rangers Are Team Timid
Janssen lets ‘em hear it
Skirmish helps Devils beat Rangers

More Fight From the Future Captain

Future captain of the Flyers Mike Richards had his second fight in two days.  Richards had an entertaining scrap with Paul Mara during last night’s nationally (US) televised game on Versus.

Richards, who turned 22 a little over a week ago, is already seen as a leader.  He’s a good two-way player and looks like he has the potential to become a pretty good assist man while chipping in a few goals here and there.  He’s also willing to drop the gloves, so it’s no wonder he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite in Philly.

He reminds me of Scott Mellanby, who also started his career with the Flyers.

Last night’s fight:

Paul Mara vs Mike Richards Feb 19, 2007

Downloads update:

All updated on the videos page.

The instigator

Instigator major focus at GM meetings

Don’t get too worked up over this one.  The major focus seems to be about a relatively minor change:

“That’s an agenda item that I requested,” Anaheim Ducks GM Brian Burke said after the first day wrapped up at a posh resort hotel. “I think we need to raise the number of instigator penalties a player can take before getting suspended. I do not favour the elimination of the penalty but I think we’ve got to get to five or six (instigator penalties) before a player gets suspended so they can do their jobs and protect their teammates.”

Ben Eager has already sat out an instigator suspension this season, but there aren’t too many who hit that wall each year.  The slate is wiped clean with each new season.

The reason behind this proposed change might be the concern that too many players hold back once they reach two instigator penalties, something Doug MacLean talks about:

“So the question is, when a guy is at two instigator penalties, does it affect him to say, `I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to protect my guy. I’m not going to protect my goalie because I’m going to be suspended.’ That was really the debate today,” said Columbus Blue Jackets GM Doug MacLean.

In the end, as with too many NHL changes recently, PR is a big factor:

Ferguson worries about the bad optics for the NHL if the instigator penalty was loosened, the perception that the league was encouraging more fighting.

“And you don’t get to control that end of it. because perception comes from the person who’s viewing it and I do think it’d be tough,” he said. “We’d potentially be leaving ourselves open to that type of criticism.”

That perception is media perception.  Until this season, when it came to fighting and the NHL, the theme was tone it down or ditch it to appeal to families, the southern US, corp accounts, or whatever other random target was available (never mind the fact that we’d see the same media then print how fighting’s still in the game to appeal to southern fans, etc).  This season the media’s made a 180, or at least that’s how it seems to someone used to reading anti-fighting pieces.  Either minds have changed or a silent majority is no longer silent.  I’ve linked to a good number of we-need-more-passion/fighting-in-the-game articles.  We’ve done it for years on the forums.  There’s been no season with the number of articles as there has been this season.

Fan perception, if it matters, is clear: drop the instigator.  Any major media poll has come to the same conclusion, the last one being on CBC’s After Hours, which doesn’t seem to have archived results.

Some reads:

Zenon cleared
Small markets, big spending
More on the GM meetings from Scott Burnside: GMs kick around deals, but no one’s biting ... yet

Burnett Fights On

The Province recently ran a story about Garrett Burnett I thought I should link to: A fight Garrett Burnett can’t afford to lose.  Some excerpts:

“It’s been a nightmare,” says his father Bob, who with his wife Vicci and daughter Andrea have kept a constant vigil by Garrett’s side. “When they brought him in he was, for all intents and purposes, dead. I think through his sheer mass he dragged enough energy out of his body to bring himself back.”

The Burnetts, for their part, have watched their son move from intensive care to critical care where he’s started his rehabilitation. They’ve also learned to measure his progress by a different standard and rejoice in the slightest sign of progress. Bob and Vicci Burnett were by Garrett’s bedside when he moved his head for the first time. A few days later, he flexed his hands.

Again, from everyone involved with this website: our best wishes go to Garrett and his family.

Star Barcher

Since Jan 28th Krys Barch has 8 fighting majors, including 3 against the San Jose Sharks.  Barch has been good enough to find a different opponent every time too.

The other fight from yesterday came out of the seldom-seen ’Hawks-Rangers Original Six matchup.  Ryan Hollweg found out just how strong Martin Lapointe is as the two grappled and traded shots for a minute along boards.

Last night’s fights:

Martin Lapointe vs Ryan Hollweg Feb 18, 2007
Kyle McLaren vs Krys Barch Feb 18, 2007

Downloads update:

Connection issues should be resolved later in the day and I’ll have the downloads on the videos page updated.

Some reads:

Rambunctious Reich fills void for B’s
Ference lends hand, and fists
Konopka’s kick?
Knuble still swollen; season is likely over
Panthers-Lightning rivalry in crucial stretch

Scheduling Foes

Looks like that plan for scheduling rivalries kicked in last night.  The numbers speak for themselves.

11 games
6 divisional games: 10 fights
5 non-divisional games: 0 fights

I don’t want to build up today too much, but Sharks at Stars and Kings at Ducks, the second leg of a home and home, both stand out.  Avalanche at Canucks is another divisional game, but it hasn’t been the same game this season as it was in years past.

So does this mean they should keep the schedule intact?  Not really, one night doesn’t change all that much, but let’s not completely balance this thing out just yet.  What made yesterday’s divisional games great wasn’t just the fact that there were some fights, but they were a lot of fun to watch and filled with passion.  It’s something the league could use more of.

Last night’s fight videos:
Shane O’Brien vs Tom Kostopoulos Feb 17, 2007
Andre Roy vs Alexei Semenov Feb 17, 2007
Nick Tarnasky vs Steve Montador Feb 17, 2007
Mark Fraser vs Chris Simon Feb 17, 2007
Michael Rupp vs Drew Fata Feb 17, 2007
Cam Janssen vs Arron Asham Feb 17, 2007
Andrew Ference vs Jochen Hecht Feb 17, 2007
Jeremy Reich vs Adam Mair Feb 17, 2007
Aaron Ward vs Alexandre Picard Feb 17, 2007
Mike Richards vs Sean Avery Feb 17, 2007

Unfortunately I’m still having connection issues and I’m having trouble getting to any of the video servers, so the downloads haven’t been updated yet.  Youtube is still processing the rest of the clips from last night, and I’ll add those as they’re available.

The Orange County Register was looking forward to last night’s Ducks-Kings matchup, and I’m sure the same could be said for tonight’s.

You can’t have a Ducks article without some fight talk.  The team was still buzzing about Thursday night’s Beauchemin-Boynton fight:

While Pronger’s late second-period goal sparked the Ducks’ come-from-behind victory Thursday, many cited Francois Beauchemin’s fight with Nick Boynton as key.

It was Beauchemin’s first fighting major this season and the fourth of his NHL career, according to www.hockeyfights.com. It also conjured memories of Beauchemin’s brawl with Calgary’s Jarome Iginla that turned around last season’s playoff series.

“Beauchemin doesn’t do it that often, so when he does it’s exciting,” Shawn Thornton said.

Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that there isn’t much the Penguins will probably do at the trade deadline, but ends it with a thought I’ve had here before: Georges Laraque could be a good fit in Pittsburgh.

The Flyers-Rangers game from yesterday is getting some ink, and so is a run-in between Berube and Avery post-game:

He [Avery] even attracted attention post-game, when he got into a shouting match in the hallway of the locker room with Flyers assistant coach, and former tough guy Craig Berube.

Allegedly, Berube called Avery “chicken-(bleep)” during the game. When they were coming off the ice post game, Avery said, “I hear you called me chicken-(bleep)?”

When Berube confirmed that he had, Avery continued the agitation.

“Well, you were a cement head when you played the game,” he said to Berube.

Not taking kindly to the comments, Berube replied with several unprintable responses, but somewhere in his tirade, called Avery a “gutless little puke.”

The Rangers and Flyers play again on March 21st.

More reads:

B’s turn it up, beat Sabres to the punch: Big effort leads to win in shootout
Hit on Moss could bring NHL penalty
Bruins fight way through
Enforcers rule on different levels

Update 1220pm: Jim Matheson of The Edmonton Journal has an update on Brantt Myhres.

Update 440pm: Connection still bad, Youtube still acting odd.  A few videos are not done processing and some are telling me the videos that should be available are giving errors sometimes (that the video’s still processing or private).

Update 640pm: Vids have been added to all fight pages, list above updated.

More Later

This is just a quick note to say I was waiting for Youtube to process the Hordichuk-King fight from last night, but it’s literally been hours and it’s still not showing.

The fight is on the videos page for download (after the “Watch” section).  All add it to the fight page as soon as it’s available.

Also, added earlier today were a handful of scraps from a December Saint-Hyacinthe at Sherbrooke LNAH game and a couple of great Alek Stojanov fights.

Some reads:

Jovanovski’s season may be over

Coyotes General Manager Mike Barnett said Friday that the groin injury that is bothering defenseman Ed Jovanovski is similar to the abdominal muscle injury that center Patrick Fischer had surgically repaired on Wednesday.

Barnett said, however, the jury is still out on whether the team would shut down Jovanovski for the season.

Panthers aren’t backing down from Lightning

While the number of fights has diminished drastically with new NHL rules in place, a Lightning vs. Panthers game can still produce a flurry of fisticuffs.

After a fight-free first game against Tampa Bay this season, the Panthers were involved in five fights over the next two games, representing 22 percent of the team’s 23 fights so far this season, according to hockeyfights.com.

“We do play them a lot and they are just up the road, we don’t want to back down to them at all,” said Panthers defenseman Steve Montador, who has been in a team-leading seven fights this season.

Update 825pm: I currently have no internet connection at home.  Very fun.  I’m out right now so I can check email and do a couple of quick updates.

Hopefully it’ll return sometime tonight, otherwise there will be some delays updating the site.

Update 945pm: Of course, shortly after I get home, the connection’s back… but for how long?  Time to enjoy Saturday night and just hope it’s here later on.

Thursday Trio

Three fights last night.  Francois Beauchemin‘s Duck uniform must be getting to him as he threw some wild punches with Nick Boynton.  Shame the linesmen broke that one up when they did.

Zack Stortini continued getting acquainted with the NHL, meet up with Andrew Peters.

John Erskine returned last night for the Washington Capitals.  Thanks to reader Matt S for the reminder.

Green-Veilleux from yesterday was added.

Four games on tap for tonight, a few with potential to be good contests.

Last night’s fights:

Beauchemin vs Boynton Feb 15, 2007
Stortini vs Peters Feb 15, 2007
Hollweg vs Commodore Feb 15, 2007

Reminder:

There’s now a hockeyfights.com fight videos feed.

Some reads:

Brawls deserve a fighting chance in NHL

Steve Politi of The Star-Ledger pulls no punches:

Instead, his sport went all peace-love-and-happiness on him, the pansies in the league office making tough guys like him increasingly unimportant. So now Janssen, a kid with endless guts and a mean right hook, rides the Devils’ bench most nights.

And this is really what makes me want to drop the gloves: The NHL thought limiting fighting will make the sport more mainstream. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. The nerds who run this sport figured without the brawls, some little old lady in Peoria would find Versus on her cable system and declare, “I’m going to give this beautiful sport a try!”

The result, like much of what Gary Bettman has done, is the opposite. Attendance is down in several markets, and they’ll need a breakthrough in nanomathematics to compute recent TV ratings. The lack of fighting is not the main reason, but the farther this sport gets from its roots, the closer it gets to irrelevancy.

Alanah thinks we should add some hotness into the NHL’s marketing, and who am I to disagree?