The Anaheim Ducks are rolling right now and kept right on rolling against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night for their 10th straight win. The Ducks earned a 5-1 win and as so often is the case in blowouts, things got chippy late.
Ducks rookie Nick Ritchie was continuing to play his hard-nosed style against Arizona even late in the game and that came out when he went after Coyotes defenseman Connor Murphy following a good (and clean) hit by Murphy on Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler. Ritchie wanted to go with Murphy after the hit, but that’s when big defenseman Jarred Tinordi stepped in.
Tinordi, who came to the Coyotes as part of the now infamous John Scott trade with the Montreal Canadiens, had some size and reach on Ritchie, but this turned out to be a pretty even scrap. It also happened to include a whole bunch of punches thrown and landed. Oh, and it was the first fight of Ritchie’s young NHL career.
Here’s a look at one of the more vicious fights of the season to date:
Ritchie got a minor for roughing for his initial attempt to get Murphy to drop the gloves and got a misconduct on top of his fighting major. Tinordi's transgressions were limited to the fighting major. But the fireworks didn't stop there.
Less than a minute and a half later, tempers were still flaring and Coyotes rookie Max Domi went after Ryan Garbutt following Garbutt’s hit on Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Domi chased the Ducks forward down the ice, before ditching his gloves and wailing on Garbutt.
For that, Domi earned an instigator penalty, a game misconduct and a fighting major. Because of that instigator, Domi faces a possible one-game suspension unless the instigator gets rescinded. I’m not sure that it will here.
The loss for Arizona was its seventh straight as the Coyotes continue to fall out of the playoff hunt, but they're not going down without a literal fight.
[H/T HockeyFights.com]
