The Montreal Canadiens and Arizona Coyotes don’t strike you as natural rivals, but the animosity can build pretty quickly when two teams start, well, striking each other.
The Coyotes currently lead the Canadiens 5-4, but even so, you could see frustrations spilling over at times during Thursday’s action. In some cases, it was pretty run-of-the-mill, as Zac Rinaldo fought with Nicolas Deslauriers.
To be fair, there were at least some hard punches thrown, with Rinaldo getting the worst of it, seemingly:
As you can see from the video above this post’s headline, there was a truly startling fight, as Tomas Plekanec dropped his gloves for his first bout in his 941st game. Granted, there were times when he didn’t seem like he was totally on board with the fight against Brad Richardson.
You’ll note that there was blood, possibly from Plekanec? It was also that rare fight where a combatant was allowed to return to his feet.
Two questions remain: can the Coyotes hold on for a regulation win, and will Plekanec nab a “Gordie Howe hat trick?”
It took #Habs Tomas Plekanec 941 NHL games to fight for the first time in this league. He's got an assist tonight. A goal to come? Can't say I've ever even thought about using "Tomas Plekanec" and "Gordie Howe hat trick" in the same sentence
— Dave Stubbs 🇨🇦 (@Dave_Stubbs) November 17, 2017
Update: No Howe hat trick for Plekanec. Instead, the Coyotes protected that 5-4 for their first regulation win of 2017-18. They improved to 3-15-3 on the season.
Here’s hoping Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher is OK:
This does not look good. https://t.co/zGjLRUqnj9
— Chris Nowinski, Ph.D. (@ChrisNowinski1) November 17, 2017
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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.