Quote:
Originally Posted by MacFlame
Exactly. This is why a guy like Stempniak is a target. He doesn't fight back..
Ference isn't going to fight McDermid/McGratton and there's really no one else on the Flames that could or would "come to the aid" of Stempniak. For Stempniak to be a better than average player, he needs to be able to defend himself and probably even be the aggressor at times.
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A guy that fights 3 times prior to this in his career is not a fighter, that's my point. When a guy like that gets targetted and bullied into fighting, that's what the deterrence of a guy like McGrattan on the roster is supposed to take care of...if not preventing it, making sure that a corresponding message is sent to the Oilers later that game. Otherwise, it's a message that the rest of your team is fair game because no one's going to step up and defend teammates.
It's happened time and again in any given NHL game, and the Flames looked weak in not responding to having a non-fighter teammate forced to fight for hitting a guy.
McDermid Saturday (or McGrattan later in that game) doesn't have to go after Ference specifically, or even fight, but a clean healthy heavy hit on Nugent Hopkins or even a guy like Gagner should return the message that if you want to push around our non-fighters, we'll do similar to yours.