Fight

Caps Top Fights of 2013-2014: Number 1

John Erskine vs. Colton Orr.  January 10th.  14:58 into the second period.  All tied up 1-1.

“Heavy, heavy”

Joe Beninati couldn’t have been more right when John Erskine and Colton Orr squared off immediately after Tom Wilson fought Carter Ashton.  Erskine is a big 6’4″, occasionally fu manchu monster of a hockey defenseman, while Orr himself has fought 1000 times in his pro hockey career, and probably multiple other times outside of it.

Everyone give Erskine a ton of crap on the Caps.  His corsi sucks, he plays low quality competition, he’s on the ice for far too many goals against, blah, blah, blah.  Well, those stats may be true.  But, Erskine’s fists do not care about fancy stats.

He proved it on January 10th.  Erskine had a little bit of a hot head in this game.  Well, he pretty much has a hot head every game.  But, in this particular game, Erskine’s head was a little bit hotter.  Before this fight even occurred, Erskine accidentally punched a ref when he was trying to get closer to mauling Leafs Captain Dion Phaneuf.  Then, he watched his buddy Wilson win his fight over Ashton.  Now, who knows whey Erskine fought Orr immediately after Wilson fought Ashton.  Maybe it was because he wanted to show the Caps’ young gun he wasn’t the strongest on the team.  Maybe he just realized he hadn’t fought in a while, and really missed punching noses.  Or, maybe it was because Orr giggled.

But, who cares how it went down.  Let’s get into the Caps’ top fight of the year.

After staring deeply into each others eyes, Orr was the first to pounce, grabbing Erskine’s collar.  Erskine hates when people grabs his collar, and after taking a light punch early, he immediately answers.  Erskine then just tries to get comfortable, jabbing a few quick lefts.  Orr swings a heavy strike right over Erskine’s head, and Erskine begins firing away, his pads flailing off of his tree trunk arms.  Erskine angrily punches on and on.  It’s not even close.  It just keeps going and going.  Orr is desperately trying to return some punches, but there is no stopping an angry Erskine.  He is able to knock Erskine’s lid right off of his head, which apparently lights the fuse, as Erskine takes him down in a knockout win.

Erskine is one of the better fighters in the league, and though he only fought twice over the course of the Capitals 2013-2014 campaign, he made sure it was the one to remember.

Tommy Chalk

Tommy Chalk is a recent journalism graduate at the University of Maryland. He loves hockey, numbers and pretty much anything covered in ranch. Writes about fights and stuff that goes on in the Capitals world.

Related Articles

Back to top button