NHL Blows... the call on Ottawa vs Buffalo

I'm still following the fallout from Thursday's brawl between Buffalo and Ottawa and a couple of things have jumped out at me.

First off, Lindy Ruff was fined by the NHL for the incident. The only plausible reason here is that Ruff is being fined for putting the line of Kaleta, Mair and Peters on the ice.

Ok, fair enough, fine away. The intent of that line change is quite clear.

So, let's skip forward to Saturday night. Ottawa pulls Brian McGratton (thanks James for pointing out my error on my post about Sat's game. ) out of the press box for the first time in 10 games.

My question is, why isn't the NHL fining Bryan Murray for putting McGratton into the lineup? How is that any different from Ruff putting his goons out on the ice after the Drury injury. In fact it is worse, Ruff could have at least plead heat of the moment, Murray slotted McGratton into the lineup with cold blooded premeditation.

I was browsing around the net and caught site of a post on the Checking Line that I found amusing. In short, Chris DeGroat is suggesting that Martin Biron should have checked out this video of Emery pounding the snot out of Josh Gratton in an AHL game a few years back.

Why is that amusing? If you watch the video the first guy to congratulate Emery after the fight is none other than Anton Volchenkov. The Ottawa Defenseman was on the ice at the time of the Sens/Sabres tilt and my original post about this fight mistakenly identified him as the guy who went for Emery after he pummeled Biron.

So, not only did I mistakenly identify the player, from the wrong team no less... but he is probably the one guy on the ice who knew better than to throw down with Emery from personal experience.

That would be why Blind Sight is 20/20.

Ray Emery fights Martin Biron - Update

Ok, first off, let's correct my previous post. It was Andrew Peters that challenged Ray Emery AFTER he had beat the snot out of Martin Biron.

Yep, the snot.

Funny thing is Emery gave a good account of himself with Peters. Not that he landed anything but the image of Emery laughing after Peters lands three straight right hands kind of gives you the chills.

Thanks to hockeyfights.com for posting the video on YouTube! You can watch it below.




This fight was pretty good, but I don't think it stacks up against "The Greatest Hockey Fight Ever".

These two teams play again on Saturday night so things should be interesting.

To bring this post back to fantasy hockey, the incident that started the fight was a questionable hit by Chris Neil on Chris Drury. Drury was helped off the ice with a nasty looking head wound. No word yet on how long Drury will be out of the lineup, if at all.

Ray Emery kicks the boogers out of Marty Biron

Yep, you read that right.

Ray Emery beat the living crap out of Martin Biron and then threw down with Anton Volchenkov (I think it was him).

Seriousely. If your league counts PIM as a positive factor then Emery just got you 22 minutes in one go. Too bad he was booted out of the game and lost you a start for 0 points.

As soon as I find some video of this fight I'll put it up against the Potvin vs Hextall fight and see if it compares.