The San Jose Sharks and Florida Panthers game on Monday devolved into violence during a third-period scrum which saw the team’s two goaltenders drop their gloves with each other.
The tilt occurred after Sharks defenseman Vincent Desharnais tripped Panthers forward Mackie Samoskevich along the corner boards with 14 minutes remaining in the game. Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues then came out of nowhere and hip-checked Desharnais down hard to the ice, causing Alex Nedeljkovic to leave his crease and join the scrum. As the Sharks goaltender threw shots at various Panthers players, Sergei Bobrovsky grew irate at the other end and decided enough was enough.
“I felt that it was a little bit too much over the line,” Bobrovsky said postgame. “I want to make sure to get in and let him know.”
The two-time Vezina Trophy winner then skated 200 feet down the ice with purpose, tossing his catching glove and blocker pad off with authority. Once he arrived at the fracas, he immediately grabbed Nedeljkovic, ripped his opponent’s goalie mask off, and started throwing blows.
“I really didn’t see much of anything,” Nedeljkovic said. “I just heard some of the guys yelling, ‘Ned,’ and I turned around and Bob was right there.”
The two then danced and swung at each other for 20 seconds as the Amerant Bank Arena crowd went nuts.
“It’s exciting, but it’s obviously not the thing I’m doing for a living,” Bobrovsky said. “We had a good fight.”
Nedeljkovic did a lot of bobbing and weaving — before Bobrovsky fell over inelegantly.
“I was just trying not to get punched,” Nedeljkovic explained. “Try to throw one of my own and not look like too big of a fool doing it.”
Bobrovsky and Nedeljkovic got matching majors for fighting and two minutes each for leaving the crease. Desharnais got the only other minor, a tripping penalty for upending Samoskevich.
“I couldn’t believe it when the best goalie in the world is doing that,” said Matthew Tkachuk, who made his grand return to the lineup on Monday after rehabbing an injury. “It’s pretty incredible, and we know what he’s meant to our team since I’ve been here. He just added another part of his game.”
What set Nedeljkovic off was Evan Rodrigues’ late hit on Desharnais. Rodrigues was not penalized on the play.
“Honestly, it was kind of a bulls*** play,” Nedeljkovic said. “The play was over, he tripped him, he didn’t hit him at all, he tripped him and then Rodrigues comes in late and the whistle went already. He full-on finished his hit. He’s in a defenseless position. Yeah, he’s a big guy, but he’s not expecting to be hit in that instance. He didn’t even have the puck. I don’t think there’s any justification for it. As soon as I saw it, for me it was enough to go and do something.”
The fight, which was Bobrovsky’s first of his career, elicited a huge round of applause from Panthers fans when he returned to the crease to finish the game.
“Yeah, that was exciting for sure,” Bobrovsky said. “That was great. It was emotional. I didn’t know that it was going to be this much, but yeah it was a good feeling.”
“It was definitely one of the loudest I’ve ever heard it and we were waiting for him to come back,” Tkachuk added. “They were trying to get us to go, and we were like, ‘Trust, me you’re probably going to want to hear this crowd pop.’ The refs were good sports about it. It’s pretty good for the game when that type of stuff happens. I thought it was awesome. We loved it. We don’t want to see him do that a lot, but we absolutely loved it.”
While the fight made the building come alive, the Panthers couldn’t come back and lost to the upstart Sharks 4-1. The back-to-back champion Panthers now sit four points out of the final wild-card spot in the East.
“One of our best players is going out of his comfort zone,” Tkachuk said. “Players should take that as a spark. We push, couldn’t quite get it, but we need to use that fire, that energy from our backbone in Bob, and use that in our next road trip. Let’s be honest, we’re not a good spot right now at all in the standings.”
Meanwhile, in the visitor’s locker room, Nedeljkovic was having his name chanted by teammates.
“You know what, I would [fight] for anybody, any of these 25 guys here,” Nedeljkovic said. “I think that just speaks to how close we are as a group.”
