Last night's game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vegas Golden Knights was clearly one of the best of the season, being a pair of good teams, an exciting game with lead changes, and of course, one of the year's best line brawls.
Down 3-1 going in to the third period and having lost five of their six games, the Tampa Bay Lightning were clearly on edge going into the third period in what was an extremely physical game. That's perhaps why when Patrick Maroon was lightly clipped after the whistle, he flew off his handle initiating the line brawl.
Keegan Kolesar is the Golden Knight that was the instigator, skating by after the whistle, making contact with Maroon, and after dusting the blood off his mouth from the first punch, Kolesar remains in it. Looking around the brawl, Corey Perry and Nicolas Hague square off in an amazing fight. In true line brawl fashion, Bogosian jumps to the aid of Perry when he's knocked down, with Kolesar on his back, and tries to pull Hague off of Perry. New Lightning player Mikey Eyssimont also squares off in a quality fight against tough customer Zach Whitecloud. In total, the penalties assessed in this game ended up totalling 144 minutes.
The Lightning took some momentum from this moment in home ice, and scored two goals in the final 3 minutes to force the game to overtime. Unfortunately it wasn't enough, as Vegas sealed the winner with just under two minutes remaining in overtime.
