This hasn’t been an ordinary pre-season by any means. There are usually some controversial incidents every pre-season, but during the last couple of weeks, there have been incidents almost every night.
That’s something that could happen when you let rivalry teams play each other, but you still don’t want to see star players get injured for something that happens in meaningless games.
Patrik Laine suffered a leg injury after a knee-on-knee colission that will see him sidelined for a couple of months in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and last night, tensions ran high when the Florida Panthers played the Tampa Bay Lightning.
READ MORE: Jason Demers calls out Tim Stutzle for embellishment
The two teams are both reliable playoff contenders, and it’s not that weird that sparks fly when they play each other. And during Wednesday’s exhibition game, Nikita Kucherov tried to get his team going by dropping the gloves.
The Russian superstar is more known for his offensive plays and point production than his physical play and fighting, but he didn’t waste any time going after Josh Davies after the Panthers forward laid a big hit on Victor Hedman.
The hit from Davies was clean and great, and Hedman bounced back up immediately.
READ MORE: Marc-Andre Fleury pulls off a prank in the middle of Wild game
He was even up from the ice before Nikita Kucherov got to Davies to retaliate the hit, and the fact that Kuch even went after Davies after a seemingly great hit had fans furious.
”Hedman bouncing up good to go then turning around confused as to what the **** Kucherov is doing sums the whole situation up pretty well,” one user said.
”Really hating that every big hit is followed by this,” another said.
”What did Kuch get on that? Grabbing a guy from behind when he’s not expecting it and not giving him a chance to catch his fall is recipe for disaster. All that for what was a clean hit,” a third added.
”I guess grabbing a guy from behind in retaliation is the new move this pre-season?” a fourth added.
