Sunday’s Buffalo Sabres-Toronto Maple Leafs brawl sparked a crapstorm of response. Columnists, fans, other players around the league, GMs (Dave Nonis tidied up the Mason Raymond deal in anticipation of Clarkson’s suspension) and safety supervisor Brendan Shanahan (doling out fines and multi-game bans) all reacted to the old-time donnybrook.
But arguably the best response to the Phil Kessel vs. John Scott confrontation — a battle that managed to outshine a rare pre-season goalie fight and a valuable forward taking himself out of 10 games — came from the Internet, which turned in some of its best work since cats.
Here are the five best Phil Kessel memes, inspired by his stick-swinging defence/attack of the Sabres’ gigantic thug.
1. The ligthsaber gif(t)
“Their heavyweight went after their star. And then Kessel went Star Wars on him. It was pretty good entertainment,” said Ottawa Senators goaltender Robin Lehner.
This one writes itself. Try not to watch it 81 times (via SB Nation):
2. The mismatch
Kessel measures six feet and weighs 202 pounds. Scott is six-foot-eight and weighs 270 pounds.
An artist’s rendering, to scale (via @Capital_Gains65):
3. One for all
Former Maple Leaf Mikhail Grabovski out-quoted Lehner when asked about Kessel’s stick-swinging.
“How do you say in English? Like a musketeer. Swish! Swish! Swish!” Grabo told Washington reporters.
He then added this barb towards Toronto: “I don’t care anymore about that team. Who cares? My team is here.” (via Russian Machine Never Breaks)
4. The Olympic callback
Re-purposing the horrible/hilarious Kessel photograph Team USA shot to promote its Sochi uniforms, @bluetoro_ca found the perfect caption:
5. And more lightsabers