Viewing today's bouts of frozen fisticuffs is made possible by hockeyfights.com, a ridiculously awesome site on which you can watch essentially every fight that goes down in hockey. If you haven't checked it out yet, do it now. After you read this piece, of course.
You generally don't see too much fighting in the playoffs, guys are a little more disciplined and all it takes is losing one key player for five minutes to change the course of a game that you'd end up wishing you could have back for a long time. But over two days of hockey, we did get two fights, one in the matchup between the Bay Area's own San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings and another in the game between the Detroit Red Wings and Phoenix Coyotes.
I am a huge MMA enthusiast, but for some reason, I absolutely love the sloppy, undisciplined fighting style in hockey fights. To me, there's nothing more beautiful than a perfectly executed jab, but when I see two guys drop the gloves in hockey, all professional analysis goes out the window and I'm totally jacked. Make the jump for a look at the fights.
Ben Eager, San Jose Sharks vs. Kyle Clifford, Los Angeles Kings (Link)
This fight started shortly after Jarrett Stoll brutalized Ian White on the boards with a hit that is probably going to earn disciplinary action. The Sharks were jacked up and Eager wasn't trying to hear any of what the Kings had to say, and almost immediately after play resumed, Eager found the first guy he could: Kyle Clifford. If Clifford were in a major mixed martial arts promotion, he'd be dangerously close to getting his walking papers - the guy gets beat up a lot.
Here was no different. Eager slips the first punch around and grazes his knuckles across Clifford's face, and then comes back with an elbow that doesn't really look damaging, but if you've ever been hit with an elbow on the side of your head, it really messes you up all over. Eager lands a glancing right on the side of his head, and then misses, before landing another right that hits flush, before slipping another in underneath, which cuts Clifford open just a little bit. As he loses control of Clifford's body, he starts to tumble and actually lands a glancing left on his way down. Clifford swarms and lands some shots on the back of the helmet and the referee steps in. Eager clearly wins this fight.
Best moment of the fight: Ryane Clowe chirping like a crazy person near the end on the bench. What is he even doing?
Rostislav Klesla, Phoenix Coyotes vs. Todd Bertuzzi, Detroit Red Wings (Link)
This one was a bit of a disappointment, but so was the first time they threw down. Neither of these guys know how to stand up and also throw a punch at the same time. Klesla gets the takedown early, but Bertuzzi is better with the scrambling, and I'm going to say that Bertuzzi is the winner, to stay away from draws of any kind. It's clear that if that would have continued, that Bertuzzi would have laid the hurt on Klesla from that position. It would have been nasty. Too bad we missed it.