What happens when you get two hockey teams with bad blood going against each other in a big game? Well, if you're the Philadelphia Flyers and Ottawa Senators, then you get this opening moment of the Top 25.
Moment #25: Flyers fight the Senators for 419 minutes worth of penalties-March 5, 2004
Coming into the game that night, both the Flyers and Senators were locked in tight races for spots in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The Flyers led the Atlantic Division over New Jersey, while the Senators were trying to get past both Boston and Toronto in the Northeast Division. The Senators had owned the Flyers over the past two seasons, with the Flyers going just 3-10-3 against Ottawa from 2002 until this night. That record also included the playoffs, where the Senators had eliminated the Flyers in both 2002 and 2003. On February 26, the Flyers and Senators had faced off in Ottawa, in a game that ended in a 1-1 tie (remember, this was before the lockout, there were still ties), but the fuse for this night was lit when Martin Havlat high sticked Mark Recchi, earning the ire of the Flyers and a two game suspension from the NHL.
Then came this night. Havlat was playing his first game following the suspension, and the Wachovia Center crowd could feel that there was going to be something big happening. There was some physical play over the first two and a half periods, but the game mostly consisted of the Flyers taking it to the Senators on the scoreboard. Claude Lapointe, Mark Recchi and Danny Markov scored within six minutes of each other in the first period to give the Flyers a 3-1 lead, which would eventually expand to 5-2 early in the third period. With just under two minutes to play in the game, Rob Ray and Donald Brashear got tangled up in front of the Philadelphia net, and that's when the number 25 moment really began.
Ray swung at Brashear with an elbow, and Brashear answered the way that he always did with the Flyers: by swinging his fists as hard as he possibly could. Ray left the ice with a cut above his eye, and the Senators responded by jumping Brashear before he could get off the ice. All hell broke loose after that, with everyone that was still standing on the ice getting involved, including the two goalies. Robert Esche and Patrick Lalime went at it in a nice goalie fight. The refs finally got things settled down...for about three seconds. Following the next faceoff, Zdeno Chara and Mattias Timander went at it, as did Chris Neil and Radovan Somik. Again, things were settled down until the puck was dropped again. Then, Mike Fisher and Michal Handzus got into it as well. Things finally calmed down for a good 20 seconds after that, until John LeClair went at Wade Redden and Mark Recchi got his shot at Bryan Smolinski. The brawls finally ended as Patrick Sharp took down Jason Spezza. I think the only reason the fighting finally stopped was because neither team had enough players to keep going. By the time all the penalties had been sorted out, the Flyers had seven players left, and the Senators had six.
In the end, it took the referees 90 minutes after the game to sort out exactly what had happened, and Bobby Clarke had to be restrained from going into Ottawa's locker room after the game. The final two minutes of the game saw 21 fighting penalties called, along with 16 game misconduct penalties. There were 419 penalty minutes called during the game, a new NHL record that broke a 23 year old mark set by the Boston Bruins and Minnesota North Stars back in 1981. The two teams were evenly split, with the Flyers picking up 213 minutes and Ottawa adding 206. The Flyers did hold on to win the game, 5-3, and they would eventually clinch the Atlantic Division with a 101 point regular season. Ottawa would make the playoffs as well, but they would not face the Flyers, as they went down in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Philadelphia made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing in the seventh game to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
As for the man who started all of the fights with a high stick? Martin Havlat spent the last two minutes of the game in the one spot where no one else could get him...the penalty box. Had he taken his medicine like a tough guy, I doubt any of this would have happened, but his hiding led to the number 25 moment on the list.
I now present to you every minute of the fights, in all their glory.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I'll be back with moment 24 tomorrow. The Phillies make their first appearance on this list, with a comeback win that helped set the stage for a magical run in 2008.
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