Jeremy Lauzon isn’t a stranger to fighting, but prior to Friday he hadn’t done it in an NHL game.
That changed in the Scotiabank Saddledome.
During the second period of the Boston Bruins’ eventual 4-3 win over the Calgary Flames, the third-pairing defenseman dropped the gloves with Matthew Tkachuk.
The two ended up fighting right off a draw, and Tkachuk quickly landed a few blows. But Lauzon settled in and ended up delivering a nice effort in his first scrap in the top flight.
So why did it happen? It appears Tkachuk was standing up for fellow winger Andrew Mangiapane.
“Everything was made in respect,” Lauzon said after the game, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “Something happened with the winger on my side, Tkachuk didn’t like it. He asked me and I said yes and .. everything was fine.
“Something happened with the winger on my side, and the center got changed after that, and Tkachuk didn’t really like it I think and he just asked me and I said yes. That was it.”
Lauzon was a willing participant in plenty of fights in the AHL, so it only was a matter of time before he got into one in the NHL. Suffice to say he made it a spirited one.
