It looked like we were close to a goalie fight Wednesday night when Buffalo’s Robin Lehner and Montreal’s Ben Scrivens had a stare down as scrums broke out after the whistle in Buffalo’s end.
In fact, it was the smaller Scrivens who seemed to instigate it. As the Canadiens players were all over Lehner and the Sabres came in to take exception, Scrivens started skating to centre ice and was trying to get Lehner’s attention.
But before anything could develop between the two, the referees got in the middle of it and prevented Lehner from even leaving his crease.
After the game, the two goalies had different opinions on the matter.
Scrivens appeared to take it all in stride and had a little fun with it (it’s worth noting his team won 3-2 in overtime).
“He’s a big boy,” Scrivens told Sportsnet’s David Amber. “He’s a bit of a psycho, but he’s a good guy so I guess I might be kind of lucky I didn’t have to go down, but I would have if my teammates needed it.”
When Amber asked Scrivens about a friendly stick tap he gave Lehner later in the game, Scrivens again couldn’t hold back his smile.
“It’s just head games. He thinks we’re still going. Look at him he doesn’t know what to do anymore. Kill ’em with kindness right? That’s the gamesmanship. Trying to keep him off-kilter.”
https://twitter.com/JenScrivs/status/710299382491521024
Was Lehner as happy-go-lucky as Scrivens after the game? Keeping in mind Lehner was on the losing end, maybe Scrivens was really lucky he didn’t become engaged with the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Lehner.
It’s too bad for the rest of us that Buffalo and Montreal don’t play again this season because who wouldn’t have wanted to see if Lehner would be the one to skate to centre in the next meeting?
Whatever you do, don’t make Lehner angry.
