COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 The Columbus Blue Jackets got back to practice on Wednesday with an eye toward Thursday\u2019s matchup with the Detroit Red Wings. However, there were aftershocks from Monday\u2019s momentous win in New Jersey that needed to be addressed.<\/p>\n
Following the Blue Jackets\u2019 come-from-behind 5-3 win at Prudential Center, a game that included four fights, Devils coach Sheldon Keefe questioned the integrity of Blue Jackets forwards Dmitri Voronkov and Adam Fantilli, charging them with jumping two of his players who weren\u2019t prepared to fight.<\/p>\n
Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason addressed the matter briefly on Wednesday before moving on to questions about the Red Wings.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Keefe) has no bearing on what happens in our room,\u201d Evason said. \u201cOur guys know what happened. Of course, we\u2019ve had a chance to hear the comments. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re accurate. Yeah, no. We don\u2019t put a lot of stock in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 1:01 of the second period, the Blue Jackets and Devils engaged in a nasty scrum in front of New Jersey\u2019s net after Fantilli followed his own shot to the crease. Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon engaged him there, along with teammate Jonas Siegenthaler.<\/p>\n
Voronkov then gave Dillon a bear hug from behind to pull him away from Fantilli, while Luke Glendening also grabbed Voronkov. As Dillon spun around in Voronkov\u2019s grasp, he threw a left jab that Voronkov interpreted as the start of a fight.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t go well for Dillon, who was celebrating his 1,000th NHL game. Voronkov landed two huge uppercuts before Dillon fell face down to the ice in a scary scene. He returned briefly to the game later in the second period, but did not play at all in the third.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Dillon) would never do something like that to another player,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cThat I know, for certain. Yeah, I don\u2019t like it at all. I don\u2019t think Dilly knows he\u2019s in a fight. I think he\u2019s tackled from behind, and before he knows it, his helmet\u2019s off, his jersey\u2019s over his head and \u2026 we saw what happened from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voronkov, who is not a native English speaker and is rarely available for interviews, has not commented on the incident.<\/p>\n
Less than three minutes after the Voronkov-Dillon fight, Fantilli engaged in the first fight of his NHL career while sticking up for Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski, who was cross-checked twice and slashed once in the middle of the zone by Devils forward Connor Brown.<\/p>\n
Brown slashed at Fantilli, and then the two traded slashes as they came together, but Blue Jackets fourth-liner Zach Aston-Reese stepped in to grab Brown. That sent Siegenthaler reaching through a crowd to grab Fantilli as the two separated from the scrum.<\/p>\n
Fantilli landed multiple punches and had Siegenthaler\u2019s sweater pulled over his head before Siegenthaler regained his balance and returned a couple of rights. In addition to the fighting majors for both, Siegenthaler was given a 10-minute misconduct because his sweater wasn\u2019t tied down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSiegenthaler received seven punches before he removed his gloves,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cSo \u2026 for me, there should be an extra penalty there (for Fantilli).<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how that (penalty) works, whether that affects the fact that his jersey should be tied down because he wasn\u2019t a willing fighter, until he just had to protect himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, Fantilli saw his scrap with Siegenthaler much differently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I saw it, Brown was slashing our best player (Werenski),\u201d Fantilli said. \u201cI went in to get in the middle of that and Aston-Reese came over the top. I already had one glove off with the Brown thing, and then Siegenthaler came over top and grabbed me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you come over top, grab someone and go away if you\u2019re not ready for something. I had my gloves off. Keefe says I threw seven punches before (Siegenthaler) takes his gloves off. I don\u2019t know how you take seven punches before throwing your gloves off. That\u2019s a pretty long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Voronkov and Brendan Smith had fights later in the second period, and the Blue Jackets pulled away to win 5-3, snapping a four-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie, I\u2019m proud of what our team did, especially the way we started,\u201d Fantilli said. \u201cWe came back, we played a great game.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, you hate to see what happened to Dillon. That sucks, especially in his 1,000th game. You don\u2019t want anything like that to happen. He\u2019s a great player. That sucks to see. But again, he hit (Voronkov) in the face first, if you watch the video.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets are playing without injured veterans Mathieu Olivier and Erik Gudbranson, which made the display even more impressive. But the charges by Keefe seemed to question not only the character of Voronkov and Fantilli, but also that of the Blue Jackets. That\u2019s what seemed to irritate Evason and Fantilli most.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want that kind of rap because we don\u2019t think that\u2019s the way it went down,\u201d Fantilli said. \u201cThings were provoked. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much to (Keefe\u2019s comments), to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he\u2019s heard from Olivier in the last 48 hours, Fantilli smiled. The Blue Jackets and Devils play on Dec. 31 at Nationwide Arena, he noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yeah,\u201d Fantilli said. \u201cOllie\u2019s fired up. He\u2019s got that game circled on his calendar, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 The Columbus Blue Jackets got back to practice on Wednesday with an eye toward Thursday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[392,4822,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-329577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","9":"tag-new-jersey-devils","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329577","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=329577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}