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Complete and utter meltdown, emotionally, by both teams, and the officials tonight were complete chickenshit.
In case you missed the memo, we're going to spell it out for you, real nice and easy: Islanders beat the Pens by a score of 9 to 3. That hardly matters.
This game has already made its way into the history books. Looks like 351 penalty minutes between the two teams, but the number is constantly changing.
Pens were already in a bad way by the end of the first. You could see shades of this happening when Grabner's second goal at 19:12 came off of a situation where Deryk Engelland and another player had gotten involved Isles' bench, with players on the bench getting restless and making contact. No official blew a whistle. This isn't to say that "OMG THE GOAL SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN BACK!!!!" because it should not have. What we mean is, the officials were already slowly losing grip on the game. They didn't have the initiative to stop a scrum in front of the benches in such a way that play kept going as smoothly as possible. They had already fucked up.
There had already been two fights in the game; Adams against Haley and Godard against Gillies. Foreshadowing city, perhaps.
All hell broke loose in the second period when Matt Martin chased Talbot and sucker-punched him from behind. Talbot saw him at the last minute, giving him a chance to protect himself. Several fights broke out, as Martin continues to try to throw punches. The theory is that this is "retribution" for both Talbot's hit on Blake Comeau that unfortunately caused Comeau to suffer a concussion, as well as the goalie fight between Brent Johnson and Rick DiPietro in which DiPietro's face got broken.
We won't speak on that, because that's in the past. We're sorry that people were hurt. We don't believe that Talbot or Johnson went into either of those situations with the intent to injure.
But Matt Martin jumped Talbot. Talbot was defenseless. Matt Martin meant to hurt Max Talbot.
Engelland, Dupuis, Rupp, as well as Hamonic, Bailey, and Martin are ejected from the game, for fighting. Martin gets a couple other penalties, for being a dick.
But it doesn't stop there. Officials make it clear that they will continue to throw people out of the game without ever allowing it to slow down. The game continues, with a couple other penalties occurring in the second, but nothing too major.
Early in the 3rd, Brooks Orpik shoves Okposo. Brent Johnson is stunned on the play when the back of his head hits the crossbar. Letang, also stunned, has to crawl towards Johnson, prostrate on the ice, as no one is paying attention to his apparent injury while yet another scrum breaks out behind the net that the officials are unable to put an end to. Luckily, no one appears hurt in this sequence.
Three minutes later, Trevor Gillies throws an elbow into Tangradi. Tangradi goes limp, covers his face. Gillies then attacks him. Because that's what you do when someone has an apparent injury after you threw an elbow into his head.
Tangradi is down on the ice, completely defenseless, as Gillies continues to hit him. Officials lose their minds at this point because Michael Haley is allowed away from the fray. He and Johnson end up involved. This is a dangerous situation. If Johnson ends up off-balance, Haley could destroy him.
Eric Godard has had enough of this shit and leaves the bench to try to separate Haley and Johnson. Officials have no idea what is going on. Meanwhile, Eric Tangradi is crawling to his feet, seemingly unable to find his balance and orient himself, while Trevor Gillies stands in the runway and continues to trash talk him for no apparent reason. Some other shit happens. For the rest of the period. Everyone playing shit on everyone else as the number of players on each bench continues to shrink. Late in the game Zenon Konopka jumps Talbot again. For funsies, apparently. Happy birthday, Max. More fighting. Ryan Craig goes with Andy MacDonald. And that's basically game.
Referees attempt to keep the players apart at the final horn. Must have been easy, with the remnants of their reputations as men and adult human beings with decision-making skills piled mountain-high at center ice in tatters.
Both teams should be embarrassed for themselves and embarrassed that their sport was reduced to this kind of violence, and the referees should be embarrassed that they didn't control this game and turned it into a veritable war zone. Think about being on training/medical staff for either of these teams. Now imagine what kind of balls you have to have to go and attend to an injured player in the middle of this shit.
But here's Matt Moulson on the issue:
THANK GOD.
Godard automatically suspended, nbd. He did what he had to do. Bylsma is suspended pending league hearing blah blah blah blah blah.
Eric Tangradi may have a concussion.
If any other suspensions come out of this, you better get super pumped for the game at Madison Square Garden coming up. We're basically out of people who can play hockey.
In no particular order:
oh look and it's Trevor Gillies:
what on earth.
Confirmed by Mike Colligan, a barrier was set up between the locker rooms after the game to prevent further altercation.
god.
Something bad is going to happen.
GO PENS.
ETA:
Horrible.
