The Edmonton Oilers faced elimination in Saturday’s Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the Florida Panthers had the chance to win their first-ever championship.
There’s a lot at stakes, and tensions between the two teams boiled over midway through the game.
A post-whistle scrum featured the perhaps two most important players in the series, and of course, it led to some major reactions from fans.
The Panthers eventually won Game 4 with a whopping 8-1 to eliminate the possibility of getting swept by the Panthers.
As the goals just kept on coming behind Sergei Bobrovsky in goal, frustration started to get the best out of Florida.
After a whistle, the Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk put Edmonton’s superstar forward Connor McDavid in a headlock, and he landed a few uppercut punches in the process.
Postgame, Tkachuk was very unapologetic when asked about the incident with McDavid.
”Classic playoff hockey,” Tkachuk said.
But when Connor McDavid was asked about the punches from Tkachuk, he gladly talked about it.
McDavid said that he got involved in the scrum because Tkachuk and Sam Bennett double-teamed Zach Hyman.
With a laugh, McDavid then said, ’I didn’t throw very many punches.’
McDavid also talked about how he tries to stay away from incidents like the one he had with Tkachuk.
But this time, he couldn’t shy away.
”That’s not the game I want to play,” McDavid said. ”That’s not my job to really do. I’m just there to make sure no one’s getting outnumbered, and I thought Hyman was getting doubled up on by Bennett and Tkachuk and I just tried to jump in there and do my part as a teammate. Everybody’s got to jump in there in those moments.”
