Phoenix fell behind by a goal in the first two minutes Thursday night and Darcy Hordichuk felt he had to do something.
When guys like Hordichuk–who came into Thursday’s game with no points and 47 penalty minutes–feel they have to do something, it usually means dropping the gloves.
Hawks defenseman Jason Strudwick was only too willing to give Hordichuk a go.
“They have a young guy in the league who is trying to find his place,” Strudwick said. “We were ready to go.”
Just three seconds after Strudwick and Hordichuk fought to a draw, Andrei Nazarov and Ryan VandenBussche went at it, each delivering some solid punches.
If the bouts were designed to get the Coyotes going, it didn’t work. The Hawks went on to score three more times in the period and take a 4-1 lead into the first intermission.
“Bussche and Struddy did a job early in the game,” Hawks coach Brian Sutter said. “You almost know something like that was going to happen.”
Wounded knee
Center Andrei Nikolishin, who returned to Chicago to have his right knee examined, will be out at least four weeks. Hawks coach Brian Sutter said Nikolishin’s knee is “loose.”
“When something like that happens and the knee is real loose, you think the worst, you think four to six months,” Sutter said. “He has a weak knee, it’s loose. I think he turned wrong and somebody fell on it late in the game.”
Sutter said that as of now, Nikolishin doesn’t need surgery and if he did “it would be minor.”
Time to move on
With just five goals and his team in last place in the Pacific Division, it would seem that Tony Amonte would have more to worry about than Hawks general manager Mike Smith. But Amonte ripped Smith again in Thursday’s issue of the Mesa Tribune.
“He’s not an honest guy and that team isn’t going to win a Stanley Cup with him at the helm,” Amonte said. “He’d cut his mother’s eyeballs out if he had to, to get the job done.”
Smith was asked in Denver if he felt vindicated by his decision to not sign Amonte, given that Amonte has struggled in Phoenix and no other team gave Amonte what he initially sought.
Smith declined to comment then, but was quoted in the same Mesa Tribune story as saying, “I guess it’s my fault he didn’t get the money he wanted from the rest of the teams in the league.”
