If you're a fan and you were looking for absolute chaos in Flyers history, the Brawl in Montreal is something you have got to read about. I mean, it's required reading for all Flyers fans. But not even two decades later, another brawl involving the Flyers topped it.
This one took place not long before fans wouldn't seen the NHL play again for over a year, since it occurred in March 2004. But wow, if the NHL was going on hiatus for the year thanks to the 2004-05 lockout canceling the season, at the absolute least, the Flyers and the Ottawa Senators were sure to entertain the fans.
For this one, we need to flash back to March 5th, 2004 at the Wachovia Center, in a game taking place between a pair of ultra-talented teams with 35 wins apiece. Yeah, so this one had some high stakes, and it started off with Rob Ray taking on Donald Brashear, two of the league's more notorious enforcers.
Brashear was getting revenge with Martin Havlat slashing Mark Recchi in the face, which occurred during a previous matchup. The rest of the skaters followed Brashear's and Ray's lead, including goaltenders Robert Esche and Patrick Lalime.
The Flyers-Senators brawl didn't end after just one round
Sometimes, these fights last a single round, and that's it, but that didn't happen with the Sens and Flyers. Nope, instead, Round 2 ensued, and three seconds into a Senators power play that the officials rewarded them as a result of the initial fighting, another scrum broke out, with Zdeno Chara, Mattias Timander, Chris Neil, and Radovan Somik serving as the headliners.
The game restarted again, this time for about 24 seconds to tick off before John LeClair and Wade Redden started going at it, along with Mark Recchi and Bryan Smolinski. After another face-off, Jason Spezza and Patrick Sharp fought, which served as the "main event" of the evening since the fighting ended after that.
And it might be a good thing that it did, since there were a grand total of five players left on the bench - three for the Flyers, two for the Sens - when it was all said and done. Probably a good idea to call it then and there, yeah?
The Flyers and Senators made history that night, no doubt
At the end of the night, we saw 419 penalty minutes assessed, setting an NHL record in the process. Ditto for the Flyers 213 minutes, so yeah, it was definitley one of those throwback to the Broad Street Bullies kind of games, for sure.
And this one had a bit of everything in it, from a pair of enforcers starting things off, to goaltenders going at it, and nearly everyone in the lineups getting involved. That was one memorable evening, but it resulted with the NHL implementing a one-game suspension rule for fight instigation in the last five minutes of the contest.
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