It’s been almost a decade since Monahan last dropped the gloves
Forward remembers clearly way back to days in major junior with the Ottawa 67s
Without blinking, Sean Monahan could recall exactly the last time he’d been in this situation.
And who his opponent was. “Mitchell Heard,” said the Calgary Flames forward, after media understandably requested his presence following Wednesday’s 4-3 shootout win over the Edmonton Oilers.
Sure enough, a quick search would find evidence of a fight between he and the former Plymouth Whalers forward on Oct. 9, 2011, when Monahan was a member of the Ottawa 67’s and Heard was amid an Ontario Hockey League season that saw him rack up 111 regular season penalty minutes.
It was Monahan’s one and only fight on his card — until Wednesday’s unexpected back-and-forth with Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-hopkins boiled over into full-blown fisticuffs. That was his first at the NHL level after skating in 523 regular season games with the Calgary Flames.
Even Monahan sounded surprised.
“Yeah, it was (the first NHL fight),” he said. “It is what it is. I’m happy it’s over with. I think I was going to get a penalty and I didn’t want to go short-handed and I just decided to go. And it happened.”
Obviously, Nugent-hopkins is not known for his brawn, either, but given what was at stake in Wednesday’s Battle of Alberta at Rogers Place, anything was bound to happen.
At that point in the game, the entire province was waiting with bated breath for something — anything — to happen between Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk and Oilers tough guy Zack Kassian after more than two weeks of backand-forth commentary following the last time these teams met.
So, while all eyes were on Nos. 19 and 44, Monahan casually gave a shot to Nugent-hopkins while he was skating by Calgary’s bench.
A whack turned into a shove, which turned into a shoving match, which led to Monahan ripping off Nugent-hopkins’ helmet.
Then it was on.
“I mean, I fought before in junior — it’s been a long time,” Monahan said. “I felt good … the emotion gets the best of you and sometimes it just happens.”
Case in point.
“It’s an important game,” he said. “You’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the two points. Mangy (Andrew Mangiapane) stepped up, with two huge goals. Ritter (David Rittich) stepped up and stood on his head at times. Guys were blocking shots. We had a lot of penalty kills.
“Guys played hard (Wednesday) and played for each other and it showed.”
The most comical part of the entire fight was the fact that it occurred near the end of the first period and just before Tkachuk and Kassian squared off. Meaning Monahan watched the entire main event from the dressing room as his fight with Nugent-hopkins turned into the undercard.
“I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “But (Tkachuk) obviously came in here and we spent some time together in the penalty box.”
Monahan, of course, authored the game-winning shootout goal to seal the game and help improve the Flames’ record to 27-19-6, which had them sitting second in the Pacific Division.
Chances are there won’t be a rematch between Nugent-hopkins and Monahan when these teams square off again on Saturday at Scotiabank Saddledome (8 p.m., CBC, Sportsnet, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet 1, Sportsnet 960 The Fan).
“Our only concern right now is to get two points,” he said. “I mean, you look at the standings and this is obviously a four-point game. You’re trying to move up a day at a time.
“When you’re playing your rivals like that, you want to step up and earn those points.”