Steven Stamkos Explains Why He Fought Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews During Playoffs
With emotions running high after a scary incident along the boards involving Brayden Point, Stamkos initiated a fight with Matthews after the thought of being without one of their best players.
One of the more memorable portions of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first-round playoff victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning was Auston Matthews getting involved in his first NHL fight.
Perhaps the fight itself wasn't as much of a surprise as to whom it was with. Lightning forward Steven Stamkos initiated the fight after an incident along the board that saw teammate Brayden Point crash hard into the boards in Game 3 of the series.
Stamkos has finally weighed in on exactly what led to the NHL's first fight among two 60-goal scorers when he was a guest on the 'Clearing the Crease' podcast with James Cybulski, Andrew Raycroft and Mike Commodore.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVvnHJRk8FU[/embed]
"We saw Brayden Point go head-first into the board and he was moaning and screaming and it kind of looked like a dangerous hit. So there had to be a response," Stamkos said. "Kuch (Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov) got in there, I got in there. I kind of said to myself, ‘Listen, like’ at that point I thought it was a dirty play. I didn’t have a chance to watch the replay and understand it was just kind of a tough luck type of thing."
Point went into the boards after a battle along the board with Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly and in real time it looked bad, but replays showed Rielly was merely battle for the puck and didn't direct Point into the boards. But the Lightning had already been without defenseman Erik Cernak for the series after the defenseman was the recipient of an elbow to the head from Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting.
The loss of Point in addition to Cernak would have been devastating (Point returned to the game).
"It looked like he’s probably done. And there was a little skirmish and I’m like ‘screw this, I’m just going to grab Matthews and see what happens,'" Stamkos said. "I mean, obviously, he’s their best player and one of our best players just went into the boards. Screw it, let’s just start to throw rabbit punches and see what happens. It was nothing against Auston Matthews other than he was right there and he’s their best player. It just kind of happened."
Although Stamkos initiated the fight, he didn't get an instigator penalty for it. Maple Leafs head coach was particularly upset that Tampa didn't receive an additional penalty as Stamkos continued to throw punches while Matthews was wrapped up by officials.
The Maple Leafs defeated the Lightning in six games to win the first round series, Toronto's first playoff series since 2004.
Related