Remember when you were a kid, and you\u2019d get into a fight with a sibling, but you were the one who got the harsher punishment?<\/p>\n
Well, something like that happened in an NHL game.<\/p>\n
In the first period of a matchup between the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> and Anaheim Ducks<\/a>, Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin dropped the gloves with Ducks defenseman Drew Helleson, but only one of them was handed a penalty for fighting. A little before the halfway mark of the frame, Edmonton captain Connor McDavid was driven into the Ducks\u2019 net by Helleson, which drew the ire of the capacity crowd at Rogers Place.<\/p>\n Podkolzin came to the aid of the best player in the world, challenging Helleson to a fight<\/a>. While Helleson seemed a little hesitant to drop the gloves, Podkolzin didn\u2019t hold his punches, giving it to the 25-year-old blueliner.<\/p>\n However, when the penalties were dolled out, Helleson was only handed a two-minute minor for roughing. Podkolzin was given a two-minute minor for instigating a fight and a five-minute major for fighting\u2026or as referee Cody Beach deemed it, \u201ca one-man fight.\u201d<\/p>\n Podkolzin was also given a game misconduct for his actions.<\/p>\n The 25-year-old Russian isn\u2019t a stranger to fisticuffs<\/a>. While Thursday night\u2019s scrap was his first of the 2026-27 season, Podkolzin has been involved in 10 regular-season fights in his NHL career, also dropping the mitts late in Game 3 of last year\u2019s Stanley Cup Playoffs, coincidentally against the Ducks<\/a>, this time against Jeffrey Viel.<\/p>\n For Helleson, it was the first fight of his NHL career, and just the second of his time in pro hockey. Back when he was with Anaheim\u2019s American Hockey League affiliate, the San Diego Gulls, during the 2022-23 season, he exchanged blows with Matthew Stienburg, then with the Colorado Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember when you were a kid, and you\u2019d get into a fight with a sibling, but you were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-520540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}