With this many brawls after less than one period of play, the hockey is seemingly secondary.
The Tampa Bay Lightning wasted no time before showing the Buffalo Sabres they’d be taking this game seriously.
It all began when Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli crushed Tage Thompson into the boards, finishing their hit after the whistle was blown, less than five minutes into the game. From there, a full-line brawl broke out.
Thompson remained on the ground, trying to get up and land some punches, while the rest of the teams piled on.
Bolts defenceman Darren Raddysh and Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin broke away from the crowd to dish some high-impact punches of their own.
The altercation ended in a two-man advantage for the Sabres as Raddysh was given a five-minute penalty for his fight and another two-minute minor charge for slashing Alex Tuch that was served by Conor Geekie. Hagel was assessed a two-minute penalty for boarding Thompson. Dahlin was also given five minutes for fighting Raddysh.
Moments later, with just over 11 minutes left in the period, Sam Carrick and Scott Sabourin dropped their gloves for another fight.
Halfway through the first period, Hagel tallied his second altercation, this time with Peyton Krebs. While those two dealt punches, the rest of the ice got involved in another brawl. Bowen Byram and Charle-Edouard D’Astous also got into it. The show ended with six penalties being handed out.
Over the first 20 minutes of play, 70 minutes of penalties were given out.
But the antics didn’t end there.
The fighting continued into the second period when fists began to fly between Michael Kesselring and Erik Cernak two seconds into the second frame.
Then, just four seconds later, the Lightning’s newest member, Corey Perry, joined in on the fun and dropped his gloves against Beck Malenstyn.
In the first 10 minutes of the second period, another 28 penalty minutes were handed out.
Once the teams got out all of their anger, they decided to open the floodgates, scoring-wise, and the Sabres ended up winning the game 8-7.
Josh Doan broke a tie with 4:17 left with his 21st goal of the season, helping the Sabres win their seventh straight and move two points ahead of the Lightning.
The teams combined for 100 penalty minutes in a game that included five fights and a post-game scrum. They’ll meet one more time in the regular season on April 6 in Buffalo.
Doan capped a two-goal, third-period comeback for Buffalo in a game the Sabres led by three goals.
Alex Tuch and Jason Zucker also scored twice for the Sabres. Sam Carrick and Rasmus Dahlin added goals, Tage Thompson had four assists and Bo Byram three.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 21 saves.
Nikita Kucherov had two goals and an assist for the Lightning, who have lost five of their last six. J.J. Moser, Corey Perry, Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point, and Zemgus Girgensons also scored, and Jonas Johansson made 34 saves.
The two teams ultimately combined for 15 goals and 27 total penalties. The NHL has not seen a game reach both totals since the Philadelphia Flyers faced the Montreal Canadiens on Feb. 21, 1994, according to OptaStats.
— with files from The Associated Press
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