Islanders vs Rangers: The Throwdown

This is it, what they have been waiting for. The Islanders and the Rangers play Sunday for the first time since the Chris Simon stick swinging incident.

This was the first incident in recent memory (followed quickly by the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch) that occured outside of Vancouver. Both the Marty McSorley and Donald Brashear attach and the Todd Bertuzzi ambush on Steve Moore both occured in Vancouver.

Why is this important? For a few reasons:
1) If you own or can grab Aaron Asham, Brendan Witt, Colton Orr or Ryan Hollweg off of your leagues waiver wire you are likely to get a few PIMs out of tomorrow's game
2) The NHL and the entire hockey world will be watching to see what happens.

In case you missed it, Chris Simon is out for the rest of the season so the remaining tough guys on both teams are Aaron Asham and Brendan Witt for the Islanders and Colton Orr and Ryan Hollweg for the Rangers. After Colton Orr's demolition of Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager last week I pity anyone who steps up to the plate with Orr.

This game has larger implications than just who will fight who. The plethora of incidents over the last several weeks include: Wade Belak fighting Cam Janssen, Colton Orr fighting Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager in retaliation for incidents which occured weeks in the past. Not to mention the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch that sent Stephan Robidas to the hospital with a concussion.

Todd Fedoruk was removed from the ice on a stretcher after being KO'd less than a minute into the game on Wednesday night and the following night John Sim was sent to the hospital with a fractured orbital bone after tangling with Mark Bell.

This rash of fighters injuries and retaliation has prompted Directory of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell to suggest that the NHL needs to take a look at fighting in the game and implement procedures to limit it.

So the question becomes... will there be a fight in tomorrow's game? And if there is, what will be the repercussions?

Perhaps even more importantly, if a hockey fight occurs in New York in the middle of the day and no one is watching... does it make any noise?

Orr drops Fedoruk onto his ass in 21 seconds

The New York Rangers vs Philadelphia Flyers matchup started off on the wrong foot last night.

Colton Orr went after Todd Fedoruk a mere 21 seconds into the 1st period and very shortly afterwards dropped Fedoruk to the ice with a big overhand right. Watch the fight below:



This is the second time in three nights that two NHL heavyweights have dropped the gloves in an effort to 'send a message' to the other team and the rest of the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs Wade Belak went after the New Jersey Devils Cam Janssen on Tuesday night in retaliation for the late hit that Janssen put on Tomas Kaberle in the last meeting between those two teams.

This fight was eerily similar as Orr was going after Fedoruk in order to 'send a message' about the hit that put Brendan Shanahan out for 15 games in the two teams last meeting, even if it was accidental.

Still in the first period Orr challenged Ben Eager minutes after coming out of the penalty box and two went at it by the boards between the two benches. You can watch this fight below:



These retaliatory fights seem to be getting a little bit out of hand. Colton Orr is regularly sitting in the press box for the Rangers and was clearly inserted into the lineup tonight just to take the fight to the Flyers. It would be nice to see some suspensions or fines for this type of thing but I don't plan on holding my breath.