Brian McGrattan certainly knows how to get noticed upon making his return to the NHL. The AHL single-season penalty minute record holder and newly acquired Nashville Predator got to suit up against the Coyotes in the Preds 5-2 loss to Phoenix, but it didn’t go quite the way McGrattan was hoping for.
With McGrattan being a fighter and the Coyotes having Internet superstar Paul “BizNasty” Bissonnette roaming on the ice there ready to drop the gloves, McGrattan was hoping to get famous on BizNasty. Bissonnette wasn’t having it though. Buddy Oakes of Preds On The Glass hears from McGrattan about how BizNasty wouldn’t have a go.McGrattan is known as one of the toughest enforcers in hockey. During the game he tried to use his physical game to no avail. “I tried a couple of times but if you don’t have a taker then you can’t take yourself out of the game trying to do that the whole game. You ask once or twice and if nothing’s there you try to do other things.”
The guy that wouldn’t participate was Coyote tough-guy, Paul Bisssonette. McGrattan said, “He didn’t even look at me.”
Things in the AHL might be a bit more brutal with fights and shenanigans, but in the NHL when your team is up, and up comfortably, the chances are that an enforcer taking a fight while his team is up big will get him benched. Bissonnette did right by his team not taking a fight and potentially getting the Preds fired up and back in the game.
McGrattan may have been out of the NHL for a bit, but even he’s got to know that no one will dance with him when things are out of hand.