BOSTON – This was no place to come for a debate on the role of fighting in hockey.
As discussion raged in many corners of the hockey world following Frazer McLaren’s knockout punch against David Dziurzynski, there was a pretty one-sided conversation being held at TD Garden on Thursday.
This is the home of “black-and-blue hockey” — a fight-filled, first-period video montage on the scoreboard proclaimed as much — and the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins were more than willing to do their part to keep up appearances. The division rivals went toe-to-toe with one another and took less than four minutes to break out the fisticuffs, with Leafs defenceman Mark Fraser squaring off with Adam McQuaid.
The message was clear: Let the debate happen elsewhere.
“I think you really have to understand the game and kind of understand the (dressing) room to know what it’s like to be on a bench when a guy fights,” Bruins forward Brad Marchand said before the 4-2 victory over Toronto. “For fans that think that fighting has no part of the game, they don’t really know what they’re talking about.”
And that was that.
Marchand’s comments were consistent with the general line of thinking that can be found among both of these teams. They also highlight a pretty glaring paradox that exists within the sport.
Even though the fighting debate is always just one incident away from flaring up for fans and members of the media, the majority of players seem reluctant to even chew on the topic for a minute or two. They simply accept it — the good, the bad and (occasionally) the ugly.
“It gets guys excited, its gets us amped up,” Marchand explained. “It’s more for the fact that we want to go to bat for (the player who fights), we want to respond for him. We have tremendous respect for guys who do that.
“I think it really pushes a team to get excited and start playing better.”
Sitting high above the ice at TD Garden, it was difficult to identify evidence of that following the spirited standoff between Fraser and McQuaid. Those two dropped the gloves after Fraser leveled Jay Pandolfo with a big hit, but the game seemed to continue on as normally once they took a seat in the penalty box.
However, it was worth noting that players on both benches stood and banged their sticks against the boards when the five-minute majors were over.
And despite yet another loss to Boston, the eighth in a row dating back to the start of last season, the Leafs were encouraged by their ability to match up physically with the Bruins. That’s really where the measuring stick was unfurled for Game 25 of the schedule.
“That was a hard-fought hockey game,” said Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf. “You look at it, that was a man’s game and there was everything in it. There was special teams, there was physicalness, there was a big fight from (Fraser).”
That bout kept the Leafs atop the league with 25 fighting majors. Boston isn’t lagging very far behind either.
Both teams also find themselves in the top half of the Eastern Conference standings, although very little seems assured midway through a shortened 48-game season. One conclusion that doesn’t seem too early to draw is that the rough-and-tumble style employed by both organizations has played a role in the success so far.
It is easily identifiable for Toronto because the team has enjoyed a resurgence under coach Randy Carlyle.
He was just a few games into his tenure last March when the Leafs came to TD Garden and were thoroughly outhit, outpunched and outplayed during an 8-0 loss. On that night, Carlyle said it looked like his players were playing in their boots.
There was a much different message coming out of the latest meeting.
“Tonight we deserved a better fate,” Carlyle said after the game.
McLaren was back on the ice just one night after the one-sided fight with Dziurzynski, the Ottawa Senators rookie who was dropping the gloves for the first time in the NHL. The Leafs winger didn’t exactly ease himself into the action, challenging six-foot-nine Boston captain Zdeno Chara in the second period.
It was to no avail.
A few years back the NHL’s general managers seriously pondered a rule that would eliminate the so-called staged fights from the game. They wanted to get rid of situations where two players went after each other right off the faceoff, but it never came to pass.
That has played into the hands of teams like Boston and Toronto who have thrived on the momentum generated from a fight.
“I definitely don’t have a problem with staged fighting at all,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “I never have and I don’t think I ever will. … Sometimes guys get hurt and it’s just the nature of the game.”
Despite the traditional rivalry that exists between the franchises and the fact they’re battling each other for position in the standings, there also seems to be something of an unlikely kinship growing among them.
Boston and Toronto just seem to get one another. They’re speaking the same language. And on Thursday, the compliments were flowing back and forth.
“They’ve done a great job with that team,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “You’ve got to give credit to a lot of people there because they are playing really well defensively, they’ve really tightened up their game. Offensively they’re still a skilled team, but they’re also doing the grunt work. They come at you hard.
“I’m one of those guys that believes they’re a legit contender, no doubt about it. They play like one.”
For the Bruins and Leafs, playing the game involves a willingness to drop the gloves. That’s just the way it is.