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Red Wings, Flames engage in line brawl, ‘old time hockey’

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A line brawl breaks out between the Red Wings and Flames during Detroit's 8-2 win.

Matthew Tkachuk hasn’t even completed his second season in the NHL, and he might already have passed the likes of Tom Wilson and Brad Marchand as the league’s premier ... “disturber.”

It’s no secret that he has a special ability to make people’s blood boil, with the Los Angeles Kings standing out, even if they’re far from alone. After Wednesday, you can add the Detroit Red Wings to the list of teams that simply can’t stand Keith’s rambunctious son.

Tkachuk was the catalyst or one of the catalysts for quite the wild line brawl between the Red Wings and Flames, with goalies being involved and quite the mess for the Department of Player Safety to potentially have to deal with.

Luke Witkowski might have enjoyed the carnage, but it’s reasonable to wonder if an automatic suspension is coming his way, specifically. You can see the scene in the video above this headline, and also below.

Check out the brawl from two perspectives, with one making more of a point to place blame on Tkachuk:

Yeah, that was something. Hopefully your fantasy leagues include PIMs.

For fans that want to see a rematch, well, we’ll need to see if the bad feelings can survive the statute of hockey anger limitations.

The brawl probably takes some attention away from the Red Wings absolutely drubbing the Flames by a score of 8-2. It’s been quite some time since Detroit lit up the scoreboard like this:

Via the box score, here’s how the penalties shook out (although sometimes the league will tweak these after the fact):

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James OBrien

For all we know, this brawl and blowout could be something the Red Wings look back on if they make a playoff run.

This was the second contest of a five-game homestand, with Detroit grabbing a point in losing to Columbus in a shootout on Saturday. That’s not all: the Red Wings play 10 of their next 12 games at the swanky new digs in Detroit from Nov. 17 - Dec. 15.

Perhaps throttling the Flames and that rash of violence will light a fire under a Red Wings team that likely bristles at people who believe their best days are behind them?

As far as the Flames go ... maybe this could wake some players up?


James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.