{"id":155287,"date":"2025-09-14T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155287\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:59:09","slug":"old-time-hockey-returns-weve-got-some-nhl-rookie-game-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/155287\/","title":{"rendered":"Old-Time Hockey Returns: We&#8217;ve Got Some NHL Rookie Game Fights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s nice to have hockey back, isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>PublishedSeptember 13, 2025 7:45 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedSeptember 13, 2025 7:02 PM EDT<\/p>\n<p>FacebookTwitterEmailCopy Link<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">I had a spring in my step yesterday because for the first time since June \u2014 practically an eternity \u2014 there was some actual, honest-to-goodness <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/category\/national-hockey-league\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NHL<\/a> hockey being played.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Rookie games, but still. I&#8217;ll take what I can get.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">And, boy, were there ever some highlight-reel fisticuffs\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/sweepstakes?cmpid=org=ok::ag=owned::mc=editorial::src=ok_content::cmp=sec_sweeps::add=SEC_Sweeps_Promotion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pack your bags, football fans! OutKick is sending one lucky winner and a friend to Athens for Georgia vs. Alabama. Travel\u2019s on us, VIP tickets in hand, and bragging rights for life. Enter Now!<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Now, a rookie getting in a fight in a bid to make an impression with the team&#8217;s top brass sitting in the press box is a tale as old as time. That said, I don&#8217;t remember so many standout tilts on a single night of rookie games.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Let&#8217;s start with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/category\/philadelphia-flyers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> and New York Rangers, who are playing a pair of games this weekend at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, home of the AHL&#8217;s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The Flyers won this one in overtime thanks to a goal from Nikita Grebenkin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">But, with the Flyers trailing 3-2 late in the second period, Flyers prospect Sawyer Boulton paired up with Rangers prospect Corbin Vaughan for one spirited knuckle-sandwich exchange that ended with Boulton yelling at the Rangers bench, throwing his helmet across the ice, and pumping up the crowd.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Again, this is a rookie game. He got that barn rocking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">The Flyers and Rangers play again on Saturday so maybe there will be an encore performance\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">But guess what? The Left Coast wasn&#8217;t to be outdone because the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/category\/anaheim-ducks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> and San Jose Sharks were holding a rookie game of their own.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">This time, 2023 Ducks fourth-round pick Konnor Smith delivered a massive hit and then had to answer to San Jose&#8217;s Carson Wetsch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Now, this was Smith&#8217;s third-straight rookie tournament with a fight. Have a look for yourself, but I think he might have a favorite punch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">I haven&#8217;t seen that many upper-cuts since I tried to play a Street Fighter machine with a sticky &#8220;punch&#8221; button.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Just a barrage of massive punches from the big man who spent a few games last season with the AHL&#8217;s San Diego Gulls.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">There&#8217;s going to be plenty more where this came from in the weeks and months to come.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">It just feels so good to have hockey back, doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s nice to have hockey back, isn&#8217;t it? PublishedSeptember 13, 2025 7:45 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedSeptember 13, 2025 7:02 PM&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-155287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}