With 3 Fights Last Night In The Flyers v Islanders Game, It's Safe To Say That Olde Time Hockey Is Back
The snowflakes of the world are working vigorously to take fighting out of hockey. And make no mistake about it, they’re winning. They may never be able to fully ban fighting from the game, but fights have been on a steady decline in the league for at least the past 10 years or so, maybe even more. There are now stricter penalties in the AHL and junior league for players who have multiple fights per season.
But that shit doesn’t fly here in Philly. Not in the home of the Broad St Bullies. When the knobs on hockey twitter bitch about fighting being “barbaric”, it just makes the boys want to drop the mitts even more. And last night against the Islanders, it was like we hopped in a time machine and went back to the 70s with 3 Flyers deciding to bare knuckle dance. I talked about these fights on today’s Quick Shifts, but they’re all worth another viewing.
First fight on the card was Travis Konecny vs Shane Prince. Konecny is generously listed at 5’10” but he’s a fiesty little son of a bitch. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him have a 20-man hit list hanging up somewhere in his locker. So safe to say, you probably don’t want to find yourself on his bad side. Which is exactly where Prince found himself last night.
The boys got caught helicoptering there for a second but Konecny gets awarded with the take down after connecting with at least 2 or 3 rights. After this fight in the 1st period, Konecny ended up scoring in the 2nd to bring him just one assist shy of a Gordie Howe Hat Trick. That goal came after Sean Couturier dished up this sick little flip pass that sprung TK on a breakaway.
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Perfect placement to hit Konecny in stride while also keeping him onside. Unfortunately for TK, he never got that assist the rest of the night. But with this assist to Konecny, it put Sean Couturier just 1 fight away from getting himself a Gordie Howe Hat Trick. And later in the 3rd period, he got that tilt he was looking for as he squared off with Josh Bailey.
I don’t have any issue with Josh Bailey stepping in there and fighting Couturier for that hit. It’s not like the hit was dirty at all but I can see how it could have looked dirty from a different angle. Plus, it’s Josh Bailey so what the fuck is he really gonna do against Sean Couturier? Coots let’s him get a couple of shots in there just so Bailey can feel like he did his job and then they were on their way.
And then finally, the last tilt of the night came with under a minute to play and it was Scott Laughton feeding Jordan Eberle fists for dinner.
I gotta be honest, I thought that Jordan Eberle’s mitts were glued to his hands since I’ve never seen the guy with his gloves off before. Even if he did only have enough time to drop one of them in this fight. But yeah, poor Jordan Eberle should probably just go back to staying away from the scraps because this was a huge mistake for him to mess with Scott Laughton. Nothing worse than getting used as somebody’s personal punching bag.
After the donnybrook, Wayne Simmonds and Cal Clutterbuck decided to talk about what they did over the holidays and probably discuss their favorite movies of the year or something.
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I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive Chris Therien for turning off his microphone during this exchange. Don’t get me wrong, this will probably go down as one of my favorite GIFs of the season…
But I still feel robbed that we may never get to hear exactly what was said during that exchange. Clutterbuck and Simmer are both elite level shit talkers. The chirps going on right there had to have been legendary, especially to get that reaction out of Bundy. There has to be a microphone that picked this up somewhere. I refuse to believe this audio is lost forever.
And when the Flyers weren’t out there Chuckin’ Knucks all over South Philly last night, they were lighting up Thomas Greiss and hung up a quick 6 on the guy. Ivan Provorov particularly had his way with him last night. First there was this curl and snipe to start off the 2nd period.
Perfect screen set up there by Michael Raffl who ended up getting a touch on this puck at the last second so it was Raffl with the goal and Provorov with the assist. But Ivan got a goal of his own later in the period after this beauty of a drop pass to Provy on the powerplay.
Just a couple of former Brandon Wheat Kings doin the damn thing. Provorov also scored the empty netter to seal the deal last night. 2 goals and an assist for the 20-year-old future Norris Trophy winner.