Last week in a game against the Hurricanes, Connor McMichael got into a fight with Jalen Chatfield. After knocking off McMichael’s helmet, Chatfield then tripped up McMichael and slammed him to the ice, where his head could have easily smashed into it and done damage.
The move by Chatfield didn’t get any supplemental discipline, but it left fans wondering why. Certainly, fighting happens in hockey, helmets get knocked off and fists hit faces, but tripping up a guy who is already missing his helmet is a dirty move.
In their first game since the incident, Caps forward Brandon Duhaime got revenge early in the game, hitting Chatfield multiple times and eventually taking him down where… Chatfield hit his head on the ice, albeit with a helmet.
“It was a great job of him answering the bell,” Dylan Strome said after the game. “Something that probably needed to get done and it got done in the first. That’s why hockey’s a great sport.”
McMichael has been in three career fights, including the minor leagues. Chatfield averages about a fight a year. Duhaime, however, is a fighter, with ten so far this season. So it wasn’t a surprise that he let Chatfield have it. Chatfield knew he’d have to pay, one way or another, for the move against McMichael.
Later, Alex Ovechkin got into the mix with a check on Chatfield.
