One of the NHL’s newest rivalries may be between two unsuspecting teams.
What would be dubbed as ‘old-time-hockey,’ the Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers combined for 138 penalty minutes and erupted in six fights over the course of one game.
Our first battle of fists took place less than five minutes into the game and set the tone for the rest of the contest. Two minutes later, the gloves were dropped again. Michael Haley was apart of the second fight. Clearly fired up on his way to the sin bin, he gave a message to Dallas’ Antoine Roussel, who was involved in the first fight of the game.
The Panthers and Stars weren’t done there. With just under six minutes to go in the first period, we saw our third fight of the frame. Derek MacKenzie and Radek Faksa dropped the gloves, topping off an astonishing first period.
Oh, when that was going on, Alex Petrovic tried to pick a fight with Roussel, but Dillon Heatherington stepped up and dropped the gloves. Keep in mind this happened all in the first period of the game.
Like the 80s
The second didn’t see any fights. Clearly, both teams needed to take a break after the wild first period.
Now six-one in favor of the Stars, late in the third period, Brett Ritchie and Connor Brickley came to blows for the fifth fight of the night. As mentioned before, there were six boxing matches in this contest. Jamie McGinn and Stephen Johns capped off the night with another altercation.
Both teams were fired up and the fans were loving it. It was a game reminiscent of the 80s era of hockey and was an absolute thrill.
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