Blood, Fists and Flying Haymakers: Wild and Mammoth Drop the Gloves Twice in 90 Seconds

The late Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns would have enjoyed this.

The Utah Mammoth and the Minnesota Wild wasted no time getting right to business Tuesday night as two heavyweight tilts broke out within the first 90 seconds of the game.

Liam O’Brien was back in the lineup for Utah, and he wasted absolutely no time getting involved. Maybe sitting out had him a little more fired up than usual, because he looked ready to throw hands the second the opportunity presented itself.

O’Brien squared off with Minnesota’s Michael McCarron in a fight that featured some pretty serious leather being thrown. McCarron had the size advantage, standing five inches taller than O’Brien, but that didn’t seem to bother Utah’s forward one bit. O’Brien came out swinging like Canelo Alvarez and connected with some big shots of his own.

It was the kind of scrap that gets a building buzzing, and the crowd certainly got its money’s worth from the onset. 

But apparently, one fight wasn’t enough. 

Minnesota’s Matt Boldy and Utah defenseman Mikhail Sergachev decided they wanted in on the action, dropping the gloves in another scrap that had fans reaching for the popcorn.

You have to imagine the Wild would much rather see Boldy putting the puck in the back of the net than trading punches, but he was clearly willing to get his hands dirty Tuesday night.

Two fights in quick succession is pretty wild by today’s standards, especially with all of the concerns around concussions and CTE. But if you’re an asking an old-school head like myself, there’s nothing wrong with deviating back to the 80s and 90s, at least for one night.

Whether that early animosity carries over the next time these teams meet remains to be seen, but Tuesday’s opening minutes made one thing clear: neither side was interested in easing its way into this one.