The Marlies had three of their six defenders in fights during the opening seconds of the game and managed to keep the puck out of their net.
When Toronto Marlies defenseman Marshall Rifai and Springfield Thunderbirds forward Kale Kessy dropped the gloves right off the opening faceoff in Toronto on Saturday night, nobody expected what was to come.
The players tried to wait each other out before Rifai, who grabbed Kessy first, jumped in the air, and threw what's usually dubbed The Superman Punch.
That was Rifai's only punch in the bout, and Kessy took control after that. Kessy threw several punches at Rifai before the two players wrestled each other to the ground.
Rifai was playing in his first game with the Marlies since Jan. 5, after a brief stint up in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 27-year-old played one game on Toronto's bottom defense pairing, registering 9:40 of ice time.
He has four assists through 13 games with the Marlies this season. Rifai missed a good portion of the first half of the season due to wrist surgery in September.
This isn't the first time we've seen the "Superman Punch" thrown by a player within the Maple Leafs organization.
Simon Benoit also threw the punch in an NHL game against the Utah Mammoth's Michael Kesselring in March of last season. It garnered a lot of attention and love from Maple Leafs fans in the days following.
"I think just in the moment I felt I had an opening there, and I just took it," Benoit smiled after that game, a 4-3 win, in which he also had a goal.
Less than 10 seconds after the Rifai/Kessy matchup on Saturday, Marlies defenseman Henry Thrun and Thunderbirds forward Dylan Peterson dropped the gloves in Toronto's end of the rink.
Both traded shots for half a minute before officials stepped in to break up the fight.
And if you thought that was all for fights in the period, you were wrong.
Seconds later, Marlies defender Blake Smith got into it with Thunderbirds defender Hunter Skinner. Smith received five minutes for fighting and a game misconduct, while Skinner got two minutes for roughing.
Toronto had three of its six defensemen in the penalty box for the first five minutes of the game. Maple Leafs prospect Ryan Tverberg went on defense for a couple of shifts.
The Marlies eventually defeated Springfield, the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues, 5-1 in what was Toronto's final game before the AHL All-Star Break. Vinni Lettieri, Logan Shaw, Michael Pezzetta, Luke Haymes, and Benoit-Olivier Groulx had the goals.
Artur Akhtyamov made 29 of 30 stops for his 16th win of the season. Through 26 games this season, the 24-year-old has a 16-7-3-0 record and a .902 save percentage.
Akhtyamov was named an AHL All-Star on Jan. 15. He'll be AHL Toronto's only representative at the festivities, which are set to get underway on Feb. 10 in Rockford, Illinois.
The Marlies' first game after the All-Star break is on Feb. 14 against the Laval Rocket.