Throwdown Lowdown – Blues @ Penguins 11-23-11

Deryk Engelland is always in the middle of scrums. Image via ztil301/Flickr

Well, that wasn’t favorable. The St. Louis Blues did not give their worst effort of the year, but certainly didn’t give their best in a 3-2 regulation loss to the Los Angeles Kings last night. There was a fight in the game, but I may steadfastly refuse to post video of it as I felt it wasn’t even worthy of fighting majors . . . Scott Nichol and Colin Fraser hugged it out for a few seconds before Fraser basically fell on top of Nichol. Easy draw, even if the video isn’t available and votes haven’t been tallied yet. So the Blues now have collected seven fighting majors on the season, good for a tie for 20th in the National Hockey League in that category. The fight record moves to 3-0-4 on the season.

And onward to Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Penguins are buoyed by the return of überstar sensation Sidney Crosby from a concussion sustained back in January. As much as fight fans like me enjoy ribbing Sid the Kid, and as much as I personally do not care about his return, the fact that he is back on the ice and playing is a big deal to the sport, and definitely it is a big deal to this Penguins team. This also gives me some hope that David Perron can come back soon, but let’s not count all our chickens before they hatch. Right now, despite having several of the league’s top enforcers from last season on their squadron, the Penguins are “mired” in the same tie for 20th the Blues just moved up into (and for the record, the other three teams in that tie are the Edmonton Oilers, the aforementioned Kings and the New Jersey Devils). But the Pens’ fight record is slightly better than the Blues’ record at 4-1-2. Last year, the Penguins were tied for second in the NHL with the Boston Bruins with 71 fighting majors collected (and granted, a lot of those were earned in several battles with the New York Islanders that turned bloody last year). Their fight record was 25-24-22.

Penguins players that have fought this year include Arron Asham (5’11”, 205lbs, 3-0-0) with three fights, Deryk Engelland (6’2”, 202lbs, 1-0-1) with two and Ben Lovejoy (6’2”, 215lbs, Draw, on IR with a broken wrist) and Craig Adams (6’0”, 197lbs, Loss) with one fighting major each. Current Pens that fought last year are led by Engelland (7-2-4) with 13 fights. Journeyman enforcer and human behemoth Steve MacIntyre (6’5”, 250lbs, 4-1-2) fought seven times last year, while Asham (2-0-4) and Adams (0-5-1) each fought six times. Tyler Kennedy (5’11”, 183lbs, 2-1-0) and league-wide whipping boy Matt Cooke (5’11”, 205lbs, 1-0-2) each fought three times. Backup goaltender and former Blue Brent Johnson (6’3”, 199lbs, 1-0-1), Matt Niskanen (6’0”, 200lbs, 1-1-0), James Neal (6’2”, 208lbs, 0-0-2), top-flight defenseman Kris Letang (6’0”, 201lbs, 0-1-1) and Lovejoy (0-2-0) each fought twice last season.  Solo fighters included the aforementioned Crosby (5’11”, 200lbs, Win), St. Louis native Joe Vitale (5’11”, 205lbs, Win), Pascal Dupuis (6’1”, 205lbs, Draw) and Chris Kunitz (6’0”, 193lbs, Loss).

So, I was glad to see the Blues get into a fight last night, but it sucked so bad that I’m left wanting more. This is a team with a past record of fighting people. If you really want to know which fight I want to see, it’s Engelland against Ryan Reaves. Engelland gives up some size, but he’s a good fighter and could make it work.

Get me a Blues win before I dig into some Thanksgiving turkey, okay, boys?

And to all, a very happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

LET’S GO BLUES!!!!!

Information obtained via the incomparable Fried Chicken’s Hockey Fights