BURSTNot necessarily an Original Six matchup, but Tuesday’s game between the Winnipeg Jets and Boston Bruins had all the bitterness of a 100-year rivalry.
The chaos began immediately following the sixth goal of an 8-1 win for the Jets, when Bruins winger Trent Frederic dropped the gloves with centreman David Gustafsson, who went down in quickly in the lopsided fight.
The 24-year-old Gustafsson, not known to be an enforcer, was helped off the ice after being taken down and was being evaluated by the team’s medical team after the game.
Immediately following the take-down, tough guys Mark Kastelic and Logan Stanley challenged one another to a bout of their own, throwing haymakers before the linesmen moved in to break it up.
The temperature wasn’t just heating up on the ice, it was also heating up behind the bench as head coaches Scott Arniel and Joe Sacco began to exchange some (un)pleasantries from between their benches.
Clearly not pleased watching his team lose Gustafsson and Stanley, who received a 10-minute misconduct for his battle and was subsequently booted from the game, Jets captain Adam Lowry got in on the action and challenged Bruins bruiser Nikita Zadorov.
“Stuff happens. I mean, obviously you don’t want to see that happen to Gus but at the end of the day, our two big boys just settled it back down,” Arniel said to reporters following the game. “Don’t like all the stuff that happened but it’s hockey. They’re pissed off at us … at the end of the day, I just like the fact that we stuck together and did what we had to do.”
When asked about what prompted the war of words between the benches, Arniel declined to comment, only saying that, “Something else happened… don’t need to get into it.”
For his role in the chippy affair, Lowry offered some thoughts post-game about Frederic, who has 48 career fights under his belt, challenging young Gustafsson despite the clear heavyweight advantage.
“Trent plays a hard game, I’m not disagreeing with that,” Lowry said. “For guys that fight, we generally know who on the other team fights. So I think it’s just one of those things with Gussy, you know, real proud of him not backing down, but that’s a situation that he shouldn’t be put in, in the first place.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Z over there. He doesn’t have to answer the bell, the game’s kind of over, but to give me one there … he shows up and I appreciated that.”
Arniel also had some high praise for his captain for the way he stood up for his teammates.
“He’s done that in the last two and a half years that I’ve been here, he’s done that every game. In different situations, not just fighting, but just his presence, how he leads and goes about things. That’s why he’s wearing the ‘C’ on his jersey.”
As for Gustafsson, the bench boss said his fourth-line centre was being stitched up. But Arniel added he wasn’t sure if Gustafsson had suffered a concussion.
All told, on-ice officials doled out 50 total penalty minutes, including six five-minute fighting majors and two 10-minute game misconducts.
