Coming into Friday’s preseason game against the Boston Bruins, TJ Oshie had fought three times in his career. Adam McQuaid, if you include preseason play, had 43 fights. Naturally, Oshie decided he was an appropriate guy to get punched in the face by.
“That’s probably one of bad things about not being well educated on players in the East, you don’t exactly know who fights, who’s heavy, who’s not,” Oshie said.
The whole play started when Oshie leveled the Bruins defender behind the net with a legal shoulder-to-shoulder hit.
As Oshie skated up the ice, McQuaid’s defense partner, Torey Krug, shoved him. McQuaid skated back into the play. There was a scrum and then it happened.
Oshie and McQuaid both received five minutes for fighting. McQuaid also received an extra minor and misconduct for instigating the fight. From the video CSN Washington presented, it was not clear, at least to me, that McQuaid started the fight.
Here’s what I see. McQuaid pushes Oshie, which results in Oshie’s helmet going over his face and covering his eyes. They grapple. Oshie paws at McQuaid with his left hand and tosses off his helmet. They remain in a holding pattern and Oshie never disengages. McQuaid then drops his gloves.
To his credit, McQuaid holds back during the fight and does not go full bore. Then again, why would he fight a skill player? Oshie seemed to understand this, too.
“I think he might of been giving me an out there, but my helmet was in my face and [I’m] not gonna back down,” he said. “Part of the game and it’s kinda fun.”
McQuaid had the same impression Oshie did.
“Maybe he didn’t know it was me,” he told CSN’s Chuck Gormley. “In that situation I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
As Oshie skated to the penalty box, he sported several red welts over his face.
The Capitals — especially their enforcers — did not take kindly to the fight. Tom Wilson and Liam O’Brien yelled across the penalty box at the Bruins.
my favorite part is Pastrnak watching in awe pic.twitter.com/dwrejQ7z2u
— steph (@myregularface) October 3, 2015
— steph (@myregularface) October 3, 2015
While Trotz praised Oshie with some trite comments about being a good “competitor,” it was clearly something he would like to have his new toy avoid in the future.
“I don’t like the tradeoff,” Trotz said. “That was a little bit of a mismatch. I don’t want to see that too often.”
Alex Ovechkin, as always, got to the heart of the matter.
“I see a couple good hits in his face,” he told reporters.
Additional reporting by Katie Brown and Chris Gordon.
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