That was a classic. Trotz sends four of his biggest players and Tootoo out on a late powerplay, and the Flames respond with their four biggest guys. Tootoo was mouthing off all the while, but scurried off to the bench to save his sorry ass when he realized he was going to be eating punches (the officials allowed him to change illegally), and he continued mouthing off from the safety of his bench.
And yet, it was Darryl Sutter who got in trouble for that. Go figure.
After Sergei Zholtok scored an empty-net goal with 2.9 seconds remaining in the Nashville Predators' 3-1 win over the Flames on Saturday night, Sutter sent out the rugged foursome of defenseman Robyn Regehr, to take the faceoff, left-wing Krzysztof Oliwa, and defensemen Rhett Warrener and Mike Commodore.
A brawl quickly ensued.
"They had four puppets out there to do something,'' Predators coach Trotz said. "Obviously, that's premeditated. You look over and Darryl's talking to Oliwa, and he's got Regehr taking the draw. I just told our guys to back off.
"Obviously, we're trying to clean up the game and Sutsy keeps putting it back in the 1930s.''
Several skirmishes took place simultaneously, including one between the goalies, Tomas Vokoun of Nashville and Miikka Kiprusoff of Calgary.
...
Sutter denied there were any bad intentions.
"We were going to be a man short, it's no big deal, there's two seconds left in the hockey game,'' Sutter said. "Drop the puck, nothing happens, that's it. Certainly, there was no message.''
