After some spirited matchups this season, the NHL wanted to make absolutely certain that the Battle of Florida remained under control on Saturday.
The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were both warned by the league to not “go over the line,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported during the Saturday Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada.
Yet that still didn’t limit the two Florida-based teams from getting into the rough stuff at Amerant Bank Arena.
It started with a scrum against the boards near the end of the second period where multiple players got tangled up with one another. Oliver Bjorkstrand and A.J. Greer got particularly feisty, as Bjorkstrand hauled Greer to the ice from behind.
Friedman noted that Greer has been a primary cause of the Lightning’s ire.
Both players got roughing penalties, along with every other player on the ice – Jake Guentzel, Evan Rodrigues, Max Crozier, Anthony Cirelli, Carter Verhaeghe, Charle-Edouard D’Astous and Seth Jones.
Scott Sabourin, who had just been recalled to the Lightning for Saturday’s tilt, took Niko Mikkola down with a slash after getting hit by the Panthers defenceman in the corner only one-and-a-half minutes into the third.
Another scrum ensued as Sabourin single-handedly attempted to take on Gustav Forsling and Jesper Boqvist, who had jumped to Mikkola’s defence.
Declan Carlile joined with punches of his own and Sabourin was given both four minutes for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct, ending his night.
The bad blood between the two teams started early this year, as a pre-season contest on Oct. 5 resulted in over 300 penalty minutes being doled out.
The two teams didn’t come close to their pre-season total, but still racked up 136 penalty minutes in their spirited bout on Saturday.
Many of the same players that were disciplined in October were involved in Saturday’s altercations, including Verhaeghe, Rodrigues, Sabourin and Boqvist.
