The Hurricanes' Charles Alexis Legault will be out for months after the Maple Leafs' Bobby McMann challenged him to a fight just for hitting his teammate. Could a rule change prevent this from happening again?
Until Monday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Charles Alexis Legault was doing a good job of filling in on a Carolina Hurricanes blueline that was besieged by injuries. Then he became one of the injured himself.
What might seem like an unfortunate, unavoidable injury was anything but that.
If the NHL did a better job of discouraging fighting involving players making unpunished hits, this would not have happened. Over the past decade or so, it seems to have become completely acceptable for a teammate to challenge to a fight an opponent who has hit his team's player, whether the hit was dirty or clean.
Legault's hit on Nicholas Robertson was definitely not squeaky clean. But it wasn't egregious, either. There was no need for Bobby McMann to challenge him to a fight, which led to Legault dropping his gloves and falling on Robertson's skate.
I have a radical idea of how to stop this nonsense. Watch today's video column up above to hear it.
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