Something spicy was in the water in Tampa on Thursday night as the Lightning hosted the Vegas Golden Knights in a cross-conference battle. The two teams just could not get along and that proved to be quite the challenge for the officiating crew and led to early showers for ten different players.

At the final horn, 146 penalty minutes had been called.

After an almost entirely clean first period that featured just a two-minute minor for tripping doled out to Vegas’ Brayden McNabb, the second period was where the spark that lit the hockey violence was ignited. With less than six minutes remaining in the frame, Vegas’ Jack Eichel was upended by Tampa Bay’s Tanner Jeannot.

Eichel took exception to that hit and got some revenge with a big kaboom on Nick Perbix. Play then cycled around the Lightning’s defensive zone and Jeannot decided he wasn’t done with Eichel just yet as he absolutely decked the Golden Knights’ center into the left corner boards. At that point, McNabb had seen enough and dropped the gloves with Jeannot.

Both players would get five-minute majors for fighting with McNabb also serving an additional minor for roughing. The period ended with Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo tripping the Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov after the horn sounded which Steven Stamkos was not a fan of. Stamkos retaliated and was handed a cross-checking minor as both teams departed for their locker rooms. That was only a sign of more things to come.

At the 7:44 mark of the third period, the true melee began. At the center of it, to the surprise of absolutely no one, were Lightning forwards Pat Maroon and Corey Perry. Maroon kicked it all off by coming up high on Vegas’ Keegan Kolesar after Kolesar made late contact with Maroon after an offside whistle.

Line brawl time.

ALL HELL breaks loose between the Golden Knights and Lightning 🥊

122 total penalty minutes handed out 🔥 pic.twitter.com/ABDEyiwz6G

— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) March 10, 2023

The ensuing fracas included an eight-man dogpile just inside Vegas’ blueline, a prone Corey Perry throwing body shots, players getting dragged along the ice by their collars, and two linesmen desperately trying to break things up.

When the dust settled, this is how that all turned out on the official scoresheet.

Given that there were less than ten minutes remaining in regulation, that meant early departures for Maroon, Kolesar, Perry, Zach Bogosian, Brett Howden, Haydn Fleury, Teddy Blueger, Nicolas Hague, Michael Eyssimont, and Zach Whitecloud.

When the actual hockey was restarted, the Golden Knights would eventually come up victorious 4-3 in overtime via an Alec Martinez goal.

Screenshot via Bally Sports Sun