Eight Players Got Ejected For A Brawl Two Seconds Into Devils-Rangers

The New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers really do not like one another, as the two teams have one of the NHL’s most hotly-contested rivalry. On Wednesday night, we got our latest reminder of this, as the puck dropped for their game at Madison Square Garden and a brawl involving every player on the ice broke out.

The backstory: Each of the last two games, Rangers forward Matt Rempe has hurt a different Devils player with a hit that ended up getting penalized. After the first one, Devils enforcer Kurtis MacDermid tried to bait him into a fight, which Rempe did not take. But on Wednesday, Rempe and MacDermid were both on the starting lines, and after the puck dropped, they got into it. The catch, though, was that the other eight players on the ice decided to join in, and a gigantic brawl broke out.

The coaches for each team were pretty fired up about the whole thing, too.

In the aftermath of the fight, eight players got kicked out of the game, including MacDermid and Rempe. The two who got to stick around, Jimmy Vesey and Curtis Lazar, got to remain in the game after lengthy stints in the penalty box because the referees determined that they dropped the gloves first.

This wasn’t the only fight in the game’s opening five minutes, either, as a Will Cuylle hit on Brendan Smith led to a fight with Dawson Mercer.