Shawn Thornton, the Shawn Thornton who takes punches to the face and smiles. The Shawn Thornton who willingly slams his fists into the hard plastic helmets of his opponents in fisticuffs has been suspended for 15 games and will not return to action until January 11th.
For the 11 games separating the present day from that one however, the Boston Bruins will have to fill a void that is surprisingly sizable seeing as Thornton is simply a 4th line enforcer and yet it is that simple act of fighting that might very well impact the outcome of their specific games.
The Boston Bruins who have fought 20 times in 2013 have seen 5 of those 20 bouts come via the angry fists of Thornton himself. To compare those states to goals, the Bruins have scored 92 goals on the year while only 3 of those goals have come from the skills of Shawn Thornton. To slip back onto the fighting side of things, in Thornton's abeyance it is the equity between the goal scoring and fighting statistics of INDIVIDUAL players that has put the Bruin's backs against the wall.
2 of the next 3 names on the Bruins top list of fighters are those of people on the team who have scored a combined 646 career goals. On 3 occasions since the Thornton attack have either Milan Lucic or Jarome Iginla fought meaning that on 3 different occasions in the last 3 games one of Boston's top goal scorers has been forced to take a seat for 5 whole minutes of hockey action. That is 15 total minutes where two guys who have combined to score upwards of 20% of Boston's goals this season were taken off the ice have been forced to take a seat as a result of a fight.
"The Bruins do not really have anyone to fight with right now" Boston radio host Michael Felger said earlier this week. "Campbell CAN fight but won’t be that Thornton guy. No one wants to fight Chara and you cannot go on letting Milan Lucic and Jarome Iginla beat down on a nightly basis."
Jarome Iginla who has been one of the leagues strongest supporters of fighting this season introduced a more morbid byproduct of his fights during the 1st period of Saturday's 6-2 loss to the Chanuks. As shown by a rather gut wrenching photo currently circulating the web, Iginla who delivered a tough hit on Ryan Kesler immediately dropped the gloves with the rather petite Vancouver forward who had since hopped back to his skates.
After Kesler tagged Iginla high with a few right hands, Jarome came charging back pulling Kesler's sweater over his head and slamming him repeatedly with 3-4 strong uppercuts. It is assumed that at some point during that beat-down Iginla jammed his hand against his foe's visor seeing as he immediately skated away from the scrum in obvious pain.
Iginla would return to the game but for Bruins fans they had already been shown of really how much Thornton means to this team.
Fighting deserves to stay in hockey but over the past few weeks the same Bruins fans who have previously loved fighting been taught a few lessons about that aspect of the game. Number one: fighting is a 2 way activity meaning that a 1 way fight was took place a week ago will certainly be frowned upon. Number 2: when you feel the wrath of that punishing authority figure you must lay off the fisticuffs and focus more on the statistics that count. Goals.
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