Saturday night’s afternoon’s alright for fighting. It’s a matinee game in Sunrise, Florida today and everyone is all riled up. Panthers grunt Michael Haley drilled Zack Kassian with a questionable check and immediately had to the answer to JJ Khaira.
Haley levels Kassian, and guess who steps in? #oilers pic.twitter.com/31mImLU9wU
— Oilersnation.com (@OilersNation) March 17, 2018
The Panthers have turned into this year’s biggest goon squad. They’ve been in 42 fights over the season which is far and away the most in the league. It’s quite a change for a team who last year was apparently moving towards a focus on analytics. Haley is a big part of that. According to Hockey Fights, he leads the league with 20 scraps so far this season, eight clear of the next guy Cody McLeod.
Haley is an experienced fighter. He knows what he’s doing out there. But Khaira is starting to build a reputation as one of the league’s better young fighters. Both guys get their right arms free and exchange a couple blows but I think Khaira got the best of Haley at the end with a big hook.
This was Khaira’s sixth fight of the season. Recently we’ve seen him actively sticking up for players and getting the team fired up with his fights. As a result, Khaira is turning himself into quite the fan favourite in Oil Country.
Paging Milan Lucic………
Khaira is going to be an integral part of this team going forward.
Score Goals or Punch Holes… really all we want haha
Love the Juhjar! At least someone still fights for his teammates on this team! He’s going to be one of the best in the league in the next couple of years if he isn’t already.