Nathan MacKinnon Gave Us A Little Mike Tyson And More On Opening Night

DENVER — Nathan MacKinnon gave us a little Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Wladimir Klitschko on Opening Night—along with the kind of old-school hockey violence that made the whole thing even more entertaining.

MacKinnon scored twice, danced around a check like Leonard slipping a punch, and then, after Brandt Clarke apparently said something that rubbed him the wrong way, decided to settle the matter with his fists. With more than 18,000 people watching, MacKinnon put on a little boxing exhibition of his own, beating the brakes off Clarke after the Kings defenseman apparently took the disrespect a little too far.

What exactly did Clarke say that triggered MacKinnon, a player who hadn’t fought since December 2024 against Utah’s Barrett Hayton? We may never know. Whatever it was, it was enough for the reigning Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy winner to drop the gloves on Opening Night.

And that brings us to the “word.”

You may recognize the name Wladimir Klitschko. He was one of the best heavyweights of his generation, a longtime world champion and a fighter whose composure was almost as impressive as his punching ability. Klitschko rarely allowed an opponent to drag him into an emotional fight, no matter how hard they tried.

David Haye was different.

Haye spent years antagonizing Klitschko, calling him “Wladimir Bitchko” and finding plenty of other creative ways to get under his skin. Klitschko eventually agreed to fight him.

Then, at their first press conference in 2009, Haye crossed a different kind of line.

He wore a shirt depicting himself holding the severed heads of Wladimir and his older brother, Vitali Klitschko, who was also a legendary heavyweight champion. The image helped fuel the animosity between the two, but their fight wouldn’t happen right away. Haye suffered an injury that delayed the bout, and it wasn’t until 2011, after he recovered and subsequently won another belt, that the two finally met in the ring.

Klitschko won a 12-round unanimous decision, with Haye spending much of the fight moving, frustrating and avoiding Klitschko. Afterward, Haye blamed his performance in part on a broken toe and even showed the injury to Klitschko.

Klitschko looked at it and delivered one of the better post-fight lines you’ll ever hear.

“It’s a bee sting!”

Haye talked his way into that fight and then put on an embarrassing performance. But at least he got paid handsomely for all that persistent annoyance.

The Englishman Haye earned £15 million, the equivalent of just under $20 million at the time.

Clarke didn’t get that kind of bag.

He got a bag of ice after a losing effort.

To Clarke’s credit, he didn’t pull a David Haye. He answered the call.

He kind of had to.

This wasn’t boxing, where a promoter can turn months of trash talk into a seven-figure payday. There was no press tour, no carefully choreographed buildup and no arena waiting for the bell. This was hockey. MacKinnon wanted Clarke to pay for whatever he had said.

And this didn’t come out of nowhere.

Clarke has a history of getting underneath Colorado’s skin. As The Denver Post’s Corey Masisak noted after Wednesday’s game, Clarke had done it several times last season.

There was the elbow to Logan O’Connor’s face that Clarke appeared to pass off as accidental. Then there was the play in which Clarke appeared to swing at the puck before catching Sam Malinski instead while killing a penalty. Parker Kelly didn’t find that one particularly amusing.

And then came Makar.

Clarke took a run at Cale Makar, checking him from behind and sending him hard into the boards after a breakaway opportunity had been stopped by Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper.

After Colorado’s 8-4 victory, MacKinnon didn’t exactly hide his reasoning.

“It’s an intense game, and obviously he didn’t say a great word to me, so I didn’t like the word,” he explained. “Yeah, we fought.

“He plays hard, he gets under guys’ skin. He’s a really good defenseman. But sometimes when you play like that, you have to fight sometimes.”

Sometimes?

Apparently Wednesday was one of those times.

The two exchanged a few slashes before deciding to dance, and for a moment, it looked like Clarke was ready for it. Then MacKinnon started closing the distance, and Clarke’s expression seemed to say, 'Wait a minute. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.'

It wasn’t.

MacKinnon gave us a little Mike Tyson first, bobbing and weaving his way inside before unloading a series of right hands that would have made Vergil Ortiz Jr. proud. There was no wasted motion and no hesitation, just right hand after right hand until Clarke hit the ice.

The whole thing was over almost as quickly as it started.

MacKinnon walked away while Clarke went looking for a bag of ice.

Mackenzie Blackwood certainly enjoyed the show.

“F***ing rights,” Blackwood, who made 27 saves, joked to the media. “I don’t want him to fight much, because you don’t want him to get hurt, but the guy’s got big balls.”

Cale Makar had a different way of describing it.

“That was pretty passionate, pretty cool,” he added. “Yeah, I mean, that’s just the type of guy he is. He’s a very passionate guy and he’s kind of got that extra mode that he can turn into almost, developed a little bit. And I don’t know if it’s like a sense of rage, but I definitely wouldn’t want to be a guy fighting him because he’s got good technique and he knows what he’s doing.”

Good technique.

That’s an important part of this.

MacKinnon isn’t simply an angry guy throwing punches because the moment got the better of him. He knows what he’s doing, and Makar noticed it immediately.

That’s what made the fight so entertaining. There was the intensity, the emotion and the unmistakable MacKinnon edge we’ve seen so many times on the ice, but there was also technique.

A little Tyson.

A little Ortiz.

And maybe, somewhere buried underneath it all, a little Klitschko.

Because that’s the funny thing about hockey. You can spend an entire game trying to get underneath someone’s skin. You can finish checks, chirp, slash, poke and prod. You can make your opponent wonder when the next hit is coming and whether the officials are going to see it.

Eventually, though, somebody has to answer for it.

On Opening Night, that somebody was Brandt Clarke.

And Nathan MacKinnon was more than happy to be the first to the pay window.