Everyone look, it’s a fight! Who is it? No. 27. Alzner. What? Really? Yeah, Caps defenseman and all-round good guy Karl Alzner got into a fight with Tampa Bay goon Steve Downie in the second period Friday, the first of his NHL career. No time to even pull off the face shield, or did he even know to do it? A Google search for ‘Karl Alzner fight’ brought up an article with a photo of D.J. King showing Alzner some moves in practice (also an article by one of our former writers, boo-ya).
As for Downie, he’s no stranger to fighting. But against a guy who doesn’t fight? Well, Downie did try to fight Ovi that one time, only for Matt Bradley to butt in. Regardless, seems like a mismatch and not something Alzner needed to do with the Caps up 3-0 at the time. Should’ve been Matt Hendricks.
(Here’s a fun nugget: I overheard a conversation where Alzner was told by a Caps staff member that his mother wanted him to call her after the game. UPDATE: We followed up and Alzner denied this happened, so we concede that we misunderstood.)
“Karl, he’s not known to be a fighter,” said Coach Dale Hunter. Duh. It also came as no surprise that Alzner was all smiles after the game. Here’s his post-game chat with me and other reporters:
Oh yeah, and here’s the fight video from HockeyFights.com.
