Steven Stamkos attacks Auston Matthews during Game 3 scrum
There wasn't much to cheer about at the halfway point of the third period for the Leafs. Down 3-2 and unable to generate anything offensively, the Leafs were not looking good. A diagonal dump in led to a foot race between Morgan Rielly and Brayden Point. The two engaged long before reaching the puck, battling for position. Point ended up losing and edge and went into the boards hard, appearing to suffer an injury on the play.
As soon as Point hit the boards, all hell broke loose in the Leafs' end. Nikita Kucherov grabbed Rielly while the rest of the Leafs paired off. Just when things began to settle down, Steven Stamkos, already without his gloves, grabbed Matthews for unknown reasons and began throwing punches. Matthews responded in kind, but was knocked off balance as soon as he got his gloves off.
Clearly, Matthews wasn't ready for the fight. In all honesty, Stamkos should have been the only one assessed a penalty here, and an instigator to boot. Neither of these players are known tough guys, but if you want to fight someone, at the very least let them know they're in one before you start throwing bare knuckles. Of course, the referees can't bring themselves to do their jobs properly, so Matthews was assessed his first career fighting major. Hopefully in his next one, he actually manages to throw a punch.
This is the first time in NHL history where two 60-goal scorers have fought one another - even though it wasn't much of a fight from Auston's end.
| POLL | ||
23 AVRIL | 384 ANSWERS Steven Stamkos attacks Auston Matthews during Game 3 scrum Should Matthews have been given 5 minutes for fighting, 2 minutes for roughing, or nothing at all? | ||
| Nothing, it was all Stamkos | 230 | 59.9 % |
| I'm fine with the fighting major | 36 | 9.4 % |
| Just a 2-minute minor would have been fine | 118 | 30.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
