FanHouse Brendan Witt

Every Friday, FanHouse sifts through the rubble and picks the best NHL fight, with the help of HockeyFights.com.

Sometimes, one fight just isn't good enough. Such was the case in Calgary recently, as the Flames and Canucks met for one of six matchups between the division rivals this season. It took just 2:32 for two fights to break out. Even though there were two good scraps going on at once, there was a clear winner for our Fight of the Week honors.

Derek Boogaard has two career NHL goals. It's not like Wild coach Jacques Lemaire uses him for his skill. Boogaard is on the ice to protect the Minnesota Wild's skill guys, and he's there to be a physical presence.

He took that role a bit too far on Friday night. Boogaard used his huge elbow as a weapon, sending Calgary Flame Brandon Prust crumpling to the ice. The hit has earned Boogaard a five-game ban.

On Thursday night, New York Islanders defenseman Brendan Witt was handed a five-minute major and a 10-minute game misconduct for elbowing Maple Leafs forward Niklas Hagman.

On Friday, the NHL reacted by suspending Witt for five games. According to NHL.com, the suspension will cost him $74,372.75 in salary. His first game back from the suspension is scheduled to be March 10 ... against Toronto.

Devils 4, Avalanche 0: After missing most of the season with an elbow injury, legendary goalie Martin Brodeur returned to the New Jersey lineup on Thursday and did not disappoint, posting the 99th shutout of his career in a 4-0 win over Colorado.

Brodeur turned aside all 24 shots he faced, while Jamie Langenbrunner, Zach Parise, Patrick Elias and Travis Zajac all scored goals in the win. The Devils have been one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference all season, and adding one of the best goaltenders of all-time back into the lineup makes them a dangerous team going forward.

At the 2:21 mark of the third period during Thursday's Islanders-Maple Leafs game, Brendan Witt delivered a vicious elbow to the head of Toronto's Niklas Hagman.



It's obvious that Hagman had absolutely no idea where he was following the hit, as he stumbled off the ice in a rather scary manner. Witt received a five-minute major, as well as a 10-minute game misconduct for elbowing.

The Clash once posed the question: Should I stay or should I go now? We take a look at the big names surrounding the NHL trade deadline and whether they'll be staying in place or going to finish the season in another city.

It's no secret that the New York Islanders are going to be sellers at the trade deadline. They've already shipped out Mike Comrie and Chris Campoli and, one would assume, they would be trying to send more veterans packing between now and March 4th in the hopes of bringing back draft picks or youth. Among those veterans is captain Bill Guerin and, as the Islanders have been decimated by injuries, he may be one of their only veteran bargaining chips left.

See that? That is Long Island's newest whipping boy, Andy Hilbert, somehow missing a point blank chance on an empty net during the third period of last night's game against the arch-rival New York Rangers. If he had managed to get the puck in the net, and not his stick, he would have tied the game. Instead, the Islanders could not find the tying goal and the Rangers tacked on one more to win the game, 4-2. This image is not the reason for the ranting and raving that you are about to read, it is simply the icing on the cake for Hilbert-haters on Long Island.

Hilbert has two points all season for the Islanders, despite playing in each of the team's 23 games. Two points. For a winger who is not an enforcer and is supposed to score, those numbers are simply mind boggling. He has, how do you say, as many points as six NHL goaltenders, including teammate Rick DiPietro. Yes, Hilbert has the offensive talent of a goaltender. For the sake of emphasis, it should also be noted that he has as many points as goon Chris Simon and fewer points than offensively-challenged blue liners Andy Sutton and Brendan Witt.

How did this all go so horribly wrong?

As Corey Masisack of the Washington Times wrote earlier today -- and welcome to the blogosphere Corey -- the first day of NHL training camps don't have much to do with pucks and sticks, unless of course, that means giving yourself a sore wrist from all of the stuff you've got to sign:

There is no practice for the players today but plenty off-ice work to be taken care of. There are plenty of pictures to be taken, physicals to be passed and lots and lots and lots of stuff to autograph.

All of the equipment that needs a John Hancock (or 20) is laid out on tables or up against the outside the rink. There will be stuff to sign all season, but there is an abnormally large amount today. Not everyone signs everything, but some of the numbers include 18 dozen sticks (four dozen will be signed by everyone), 750 pucks and 59 of the team's brand-spanking new jerseys.

So don't expect much real news until we get a couple of days into camp. Until then, there's always some great horseplay to pass along, like this shot of New York Islanders defenseman Brendan Witt having some fun with Getty Images photographer Bruce Bennett.

Then again, I wonder if Witt really understands what he's doing here. Because he has his tongue stuck out, my first reaction is that he's trying to ape heavy metal stars who would often use a sign like this to represent the horns of the Devil. Unfortunately, when you extend the thumb like Witt does in this photograph, what he's really doing is signing "I love you" backwards in American Sign Language.

Note to self: Tell Islanders head coach Ted Nolan Witt needs class in remedial ASL. Thanks to The View from Section 317 for the inspiration.

There was one reason why if you were a Sabres fan you should have been worried around halfway through last night's game. It wasn't for a lack of effort on their part ,allowing the Isles controlled the tempo of the game. It wasn't a sense of over-confidence at the prospect of playing (on paper) an inferior opponent. And, it wasn't that Ryan Miller looked unprepared for the pressure of bringing a Cup to Buffalo.

It was simply that they'd dominated the Isles and were still just one bad shift or bounce away from trailing on the scoreboard. As Lindy Ruff said after the game, "If you let a team hang around, they can have those one or two shifts or they'll score on special teams and take the game away from you."

That said, though, lest anyone forget just who leads this Buffalo Sabres squad, it was Chris Drury who broke the tie at 11:13 of the 2nd period with the first of 2 power play goals the Sabres would score. It would turn out to be all the Sabres needed. Simply put, the goal was the result of the Sabres outworking the Isles. Two goals in the 3rd ended any thoughts of an Islander victory, even though it was, by far, the Isles best period of the game.

Drury and defenseman Brian Campbell accounted for all of the scoring for the Sabres, while Aaron Asham converted on the only 2 on 1 the Sabres gave up through 30 minutes, burying a perfect pass from Jason Blake after Derek Roy over-stayed a shift and turned the puck over just inside the Islanders' blue line. It was a play borne of over-confidence by Roy and it would also be the last time he did that in the game.

I'll try after each night's action to burp up my observations (fair or otherwise) on the evening's events. Tonight's schedule was dominated by the Eastern Conference, and while all but one of Day One's games were one-goal affairs, on Day Two it was the exact reverse, with two certified blowouts, one team constantly playing catchup and another frantically failing to tie it in the dying seconds.

After 2 days, eight teams are one step closer to the Cup while the others are still on the starting line. While one defenseman celebrated a birthday (not his first) along with his franchise's first playoff game (at home no less), another (see picture at right) celebrated his first two playoff goals and his franchise's first step towards lifting a city's sports curse which spans six decades.

Points of Interest:

• First things first, I watched very little of the Red Wings and the Flames, just enough to see that Calgary was not prepared to play tonight.
• Atlanta and the Rangers came out with a ton of energy, even if they looked like they were skating on mud and not ice. That game had great pace and a ton of hitting, regardless.
  
• The Rangers had a tough time dealing with the Dupuis/Holik/Larsen line. Those guys skated hard, outworked whichever line they played against and hit everything they could get within 0.44 seconds of. They accounted for 2 of the Hotlanta goals.
  
• The last two minutes of that game were certfiably nail-biting, but the Thrash have got to stop trying to pick corners in that scenario. If they had forced Lundqvist to make more saves and they might have sent the game to OT on a garbage rebound.
  
• The Isles had no gameplan for the Vanek/Roy/Afinogenov line, even though the rest of their plan was pretty darn effective. Good news for Sabres fans, Max looks like he's willing to take a hit this season. While this line was not on the score sheet they had at least three completely dominant shifts unlike anything I've seen yet so far.
  
• Chris Drury was in a zone unlike I've seen from him in a Buffalo sweater. For a guy who looked concussed coming down the stretch, tonight was some other kind of animal.
• Bob McKensie noted this week that he doesn't think the Devils have 'another gear.' Their performance tonight was eerily reminiscent of their regular season. Tampa, with even average goaltending, can beat these guys.