There is still a lot more to come from Saturday night’s bench-clearing brawl between the IceHogs and Grand Rapids Griffins before a sellout crowd of 6,219 fans at the BMO Harris Bank Center in Rockford. [Video of the brawl is posted again at the bottom of this post]
230 penalty minutes in all were dealt out in Saturday’s game. 202 of those came as result of the brawl.
Frustrations from an IceHogs perspective had boiled over at the 11:58 mark of the second period after Grand Rapids forward Landon Ferraro scored a power play goal to put the visiting team ahead 6-3.
The IceHogs had been assessed five-straight minor penalties by the officials in the first eleven minutes of the second period alone and the Griffins had capitalized on two of those opportunities with the man-advantage. To that point in the contest, Grand Rapids was 3 for 6 on the power play. Rockford had just one power play chance to that point and it resulted in a Dylan Olsen goal, giving the IceHogs a 1-0 lead at 3:57 of the first period.
No one on the Rockford side after the game was entirely blaming the refs for the lopsided power plays going in Grand Rapids favor. The IceHogs players and coach admitted most of the calls against them were warranted. Although, it was the hooking call referee Joe Sullivan gave Terry Broadhurst that gave Grand Rapids the power play that Landon Ferraro would use to put his team up 6-3 that had the IceHogs livid with the officiating. Read more »
Video of the long brawl that took place at the 11:58 mark of the second period between the Rockford IceHogs and Grand Rapids Griffins.
This video doesn’t capture the entire sequence of events. A little after this footage ends, as the officials were about to begin the process of sorting out the penalties and game misconducts, Adam Clendening and Tomas Tatar somehow ended up together on the far side of the ice across from the IceHogs bench and those two squared off and fought.
Video highlights from Rockford’s 2-1 Overtime victory in Milwaukee on Saturday night. Video runs 1:15.
See the great individual effort by Brandon Saad to win the game in overtime, as well as the feed Jeremy Morin received from Adam Clendening to tie the game with 3:28 remaining in regulation. It was Morin’s 13th goal and that was also assisted by Saad. In two games on the weekend, Brandon Saad posted two goals and four assists, besting his point total in the previous fifteen games (1g 4a) by one.
Former teammates Brandon Bollig and Kyle Hagel, drop the mitts and engage in a classic battle on December 15th at the BMO Harris Bank Center in Rockford.
Bollig and Hagel were teammates on the IceHogs in the 2010-11 season when Bollig was in his rookie season after spending two years at St. Lawrence University. Hagel, a Princeton University (2004-08) graduate, handled the bulk of the team’s enforcer role that season, fighting 31 times to Bollig’s 13. After that season, Hagel signed a two-way deal with the St. Louis Blues organization but his 2011-12 season was cut short in late October by major shoulder surgery. Hagel signed an AHL contract with his hometown Hamilton Bulldogs this past off season.
“He’s a tough kid,” Bollig said in respect of his former teammate following Saturday night’s contest.
“I’ve seen [Hagel] fight a lot of really tough guys. Those are the kind of fights that are fun when you’re in my position.”
Here’s the video of Raffi Torres hit on Marian Hossa
[Update: 12:00pm 04/18/12] The NHL has announced Raffi Torres has been suspended indefinitely pending an in-person hearing in New York on Friday. Torres could waive his right to an in-person hearing and conduct his hearing via teleconference today but chose instead to meet with Brendan Shanahan face-to-face on Friday. In-person hearings are typically only offered to players when the discipline is going to be in excess of three or more games.
As you can see, Hossa put himself in a bad spot in stopping and cutting back into the path of the hard Phoenix backcheck, last supplied by Torres. However, Torres leaves his feet and makes direct contact to Hossa’s chin to which there is no excuse for. Had Torres not jumped into the collision, there would have been nothing wrong with the play.
According to various reports, Hossa left Northwestern Memorial Hospital last night under his own power before the conclusion of the Blackhawks-Coyotes game with what was rumored to be a fractured jaw and is now resting at home.
Considering the severity of injury to Hossa, the probability that Hossa will miss some games and that Torres has been suspended twice in the past thirteen months, you would expect Torres will get whacked by the NHL’s czar of discipline, Brendan Shanahan.
Four months ago, Torres was suspended two games for leaving his feet to check Minnesota’s Nate Prosser in a game on December 31. Last night’s check on Hossa came a year to the day Torres, then a member of the Vancouver Canucks, knocked Brent Seabrook silly with an ugly hit in Game 3 of last year’s conference quarter finals at the United Center. Torres was not suspended for that play even though it was his first game back from a four game suspension incurred during a late regular season game when he took a run at Edmonton’s Jordan Eberle.
Torres is expected to have a disciplinary hearing with Shanahan as soon as this afternoon. Game 4 is tomorrow night (Thursday) at United Center.
Here’s the video of Torres hit on Seabrook a year ago. Read more »
This is the hard Bradley Center arena scoreboard cam. You don’t see everything, but stick with it (at 3:00) and you’ll see the beginning of the deal when Rob Flick and Milwaukee Admirals goaltender Jeremy Smith threw down. Shawn Lalonde and Michael Latta of Milwaukee had just been sent to the box, each with fighting majors on the play prior to the face off when all this went down. Thus, Lalonde and Latta both came out of the penalty box to join this melee. It should also be noted, the IceHogs were down a player all together in the brawl, as forward Rostislav Olesz left the game in the first period with an apparent serious injury to his right knee. Olesz did not return.
Rob Flick, Carter Hutton, Shawn Lalonde, Ryan Stanton and head coach Ted Dent all received game misconducts and thus ejected. This all went down about halfway through the second period. To calm things down and sort out the mess, the referees inserted an eighteen minute mid-period intermission.
As of this hour, the AHL has not issued the inevitable suspensions to Rob Flick, Shawn Lalonde and Ted Dent, if not others as well.
More video of the continuation of the “brawl” which continued on for several minutes as the officials tried to separate everyone. Read more »
First off, the Blackhawks have indicated that Brent Seabrook will play tonight in Pittsburgh when Chicago meets the injury-plagued Penguins.
NHL head of discipline Brendan Shanahan suspended Calgary Flames’ winger Rene Bourque two games for his check from behind on Brent Seabrook in Sunday’s game at United Center.
Bourque, a close friend of Seabrook’s, drove the Blackhawks’ defenseman head first into the glass along the boards inside Chicago’s zone with 4:35 remaining in the opening period of a 4-2 Hawks victory.
Seabrook appeared to be momentarily knocked out after his head was driving into the glass just above the boards, the area of the glass with the least give. Seabrook was able to get up under his own power and skate off the ice, but he was ruled out of the game by Blackhawks doctors during the first intermission.
Seabrook has had two known concussion in the past 21 months. The most recent, came on the brutal hit Raffi Torres threw on Seabrook behind the Blackhawks’ net during Game 3 of the 2011 opening round playoff series with Vancouver. Read more »
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