NHL has been always known for its aggressive and intense spirit in the game. Although it isn’t nearly as physical as it was half a century ago, it hasn’t lost it all yet. On 14th February, we got to watch yet another episode of aggression and penalties booking in an NHL game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Montreal Canadiens. Canadiens star Josh Anderson and Blackhawks’ Connor Murphy were penalized for the fight.

After the incident, many NHL following pages posted the video, and one of them was B/R Open Ice. They shared the footage of the whole incident on their Twitter page. What led Anderson to throw his hands on the Blackhawks’ defenseman? Let’s dig deeper into what happened. 

Josh Anderson stood tall in defense of his captain

The incident took place in the first period of the match between MTL and CHI. It all began when Connor Murphy of CHI rushed into MTL’s captain, Nick Suzuki, as he was coming on to attack their post.

However, there was nothing legally wrong with Murphy’s challenge, but it was an aggressive tackle. Meanwhile, it didn’t take long for Anderson to interfere and take down Murphy. Anderson came into the defense of his captain, took off his gloves quickly, and began throwing punches at Murphy.

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Before the referees could interfere, Anderson had already taken down Murphy on the floor. Following this, Murphy and Anderson were penalized and were taken off the rink for five minutes. However, Suzuki went to Anderson and offered gratitude for standing up for him during the aggressive tackle.  

Is the ‘Old Time Hockey’ back? 

Injuries and fights are a part of the NHL games. There have been some horrifying injuries to the players several times during ice hockey games. However, some are unintentional, whereas some erupt from aggression and high competitiveness among the players. As a lot of amendments and regulations have been made to avoid the fights, it is not as frequent as they happened in old ice hockey matches.

But in a game between Calgary Flames and New York Rangers a few days ago, three fight scenes erupted in a single match. And it excited the NHL fans who hadn’t seen such physicality for a long time. The fans love to watch these extremely intense matches between the teams.
What are your views on the fight between Josh Anderson and Connor Murphy? Do you think it was right for Anderson to attack Murphy like that? Let us know your opinion in the comment section.

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