Old Time Hockey

Probably the coolest sequence I've witnessed during any Pens game this year...

Last night, Pens up 3-2 over the Caps...Donald Brashear skates into the Pens zone, ready to tee one up on net, and gets absolutely flat blasted by Pens DEF Brooks Orpik. Brashear gets up, pissed for some reason (it was a perfectly clean hit, and a great defensive play)...probably just embarrassed. Brashear gets sent to box (and feels shame) for 2 minutes.

Caps kill off the ensuing penalty...but just as the penalty was expiring, and Brashear is about to come outta the box, Michel Therrien sends out big Georges Laraques. 10 seconds later, Ryan Malone feeds Ryan Whitney for his 2nd of the night (and the eventual GW)...at the same time Laraque and Brashear drop the gloves.


Wasn't much of a fight, and it didn't appear Brashear wanted much of Georges. Looks like Brashear wanted to dance a little, then as soon as Laraque got the meat hooks on him, he went down like a sack of bricks.

The coolest part...Laraque got the 2nd assist on the goal.

According to hockeyfights.com, the voting went like this:

52% Draw
48 % Laraque
4% Brashear

Out of the 8 fights he's been in this year, that's the 1st he hasn't been declared the majority winner. So I guess some props to Brashear for landing that quick jab, although I still think he went down too easy.

Bravo to Therrien for sending Georges out at the right time. This is exactly the reason they got him. Like Bob Errey said on the broadcast...Georges' presence allows his teammates to do what they do.



Pens win 4-3, and clinch a playoff berth. They remain tied w/ NJ for top dibs in the Atlantic.

Interesting quote I found from Darren McCarty about fighting Laraque...

"The first thing with Georges is you are not going to go in there and exchange punches with him. That would be suicide. So when it started to happen, I just tried to get in close. When you fight out of your weight class, it's about survival.Obviously Georges is a lot bigger and a lot stronger than me. He is the champ. You want to make it as painless as possible."

And one more from the fight files, if you haven't seen this from last week. The Rangers Colton Orr taking out Todd Fedoruk. Hope Todd's ok after this one...