Nolan Fills Up Scoresheet

Owen Nolan earned his first hat trick last night since Oct 4, 1999.  Over 8 years and 160 goals in between hat tricks.

From mark6mauno on Flickr

A few minutes after his first goal, Nolan fed Mike Grier right hands.

Nolan finished the night with 3 goals on 4 shots, was a +3 and had his 5 PIMs from the fighting major in about 14 and a half minutes.

Ruutu takes out Kovalchuk

Jarkko Ruutu went to hit Ilya Kovalchuk along boards.  Kovalchuk went attempted to avoid it, but took a knee.  Before Kovalchuk limped off Steve McCarthy went after Ruutu, tossing punches at him until the linesmen intervened.

Kovalchuk returned shortly, before leaving the game again, this time for good.  The extent of Kovalchuk’s injury is currently unknown.

Thrashers coach (and GM) Don Waddell approved of McCarthy’s actions.  McCarthy had this to say:

“First of all, Ruutu’s running at your best player, whether it was a clean hit or not, and it wasn’t,” McCarthy said. “It hits knee on knee, hurts one of our best players, and that can’t happen.”

And did you think it was a cheap shot?

“Yeah, I did,” McCarthy said.

Ruutu disagreed.

“I barely hit him. I didn’t change direction. I just went for a hit,” Ruutu told reporters. “I got five minutes for fighting, and I didn’t even throw a punch.”

Videos added

Mike Grier vs Owen Nolan Jan 30, 2008
Jarkko Ruutu vs Steve McCarthy Jan 30, 2008
Brenden Morrow vs Nathan McIver Jan 29, 2008
Krys Barch vs Jeff Cowan Jan 29, 2008
Andrew Peters vs Krys Barch Jan 24, 2008

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