If you were paying attention to the warmups tonight between the Florida Panthers and Arizona Coyotes, you likely knew something was going to go down. The two teams are meeting for the first time since the Nick Cousins incident, and it was clear immediately there was unfinished business.
That was exactly what they were talking about as evidenced by the fact that as soon as the referee dropped the puck for the opening faceoff, Ryan Lomberg of the Panthers and Jack McBain of the Coyotes dropped the gloves. They weren't messing around.
As soon as everything was sorted out, the players lined up for another draw, and the official dropped the puck, Arizona's Liam O'Brien and Florida's Jonah Gadjovich decided to start throwing hands. O'Brien landed a couple of big shots at the beginning, and the officials stepped in to break them up. Gadjovich was not happy with that decision at all.
Expect more to come before this game is over. When the two teams played three weeks ago, Nick Cousins of the Panthers drilled the Coyotes Juuso Valimaki with a dirty hit, something he's become known for. Zucker eventually nailed Cousins with a hit of his own, and earned a four game suspension for it. Cousins isn't playing tonight and hasn't since the hit by Zucker.
