Mats Sundin vs Gary Roberts (March 9, 1996)

[sr edler]

Just found this one on the YT, thought it was a little funny. Mats Sundin vs Gary Roberts.

It's from March 9, 1996. Maple Leafs Garden. Leafs beat the Flames 4 goals to 3, Sundin had three primary assists. 'Fight' happens at 18:19 in the first period, scoring being 2-2.

Not much of a real fight, but Roberts is LIVID (by account of his facial expressions) and Sundin puts on a troll face in the end and is talking a lot to Roberts when they're close to each other but held separate by the refs. I wonder what he was saying? Any lip readers here?

Sundin's obviously an awful fighter, especially for a guy his size, and is just trying to hold Roberts' arms down. Same thing happened when he 'fought' Ray Bourque. (Bourque apparently thought Sundin was a dirty player too, I've heard)

Sundin and Roberts became teammates about 4 years later when Roberts joined the Leafs from Carolina.

Click to read more...

 

[Nick Hansen]

Bourque and Sundin hated each other IIRC.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

by far the best part of that video is fleury trying to ragdoll gartner near the beginning

 

[firewagonHOCKEY]

funny how Theo is about to go in the beginning and then looks over and sees Gary and Mats and goes -oh they already started .

 

[sr edler]

Bourque and Sundin hated each other IIRC.

Big Bad Mats Sundin.



Here's also a fight while with the Nordiques, vs Dave Hannan. Doesn't exactly show any punch prowess.

 

[Big Phil]

We are talking about this a bit on the HOH board. While it would have been nice to see Sundin drop the mitts a bit more he surely was awful at it so maybe we should have been careful what we wished for.

 

[Nick Hansen]

We are talking about this a bit on the HOH board. While it would have been nice to see Sundin drop the mitts a bit more he surely was awful at it so maybe we should have been careful what we wished for.

Fighting is just not a part of our hockey culture. After Ulf Samuelsson, Landeskog must be the best we've had? Or am I forgetting someone?

 

[Big Phil]

Fighting is just not a part of our hockey culture. After Ulf Samuelsson, Landeskog must be the best we've had? Or am I forgetting someone?

Sweden you mean? Yeah, not a lot of them. Salming once fought Dave Schultz. I don't think anyone questions Salming's toughness. But there has to be a better fighter in Swedish history than Ulfie, no? He had 81 fights in his career, not bad though.

 

[Snauen]

Sweden you mean? Yeah, not a lot of them. Salming once fought Dave Schultz. I don't think anyone questions Salming's toughness. But there has to be a better fighter in Swedish history than Ulfie, no? He had 81 fights in his career, not bad though.

Douglas Murray or maybe Mats Hallin back in the days whit the Islanders

 

[Drytoast]

It blows my mind that Sundin was 6'5.

 

[CupInSIX]

Mats is saying "I'm not scared of you"

 

[PatrikBerglund]

Mattias Ohlund, Jonathan Ericsson and Douglas Murray fought and did it pretty well.


Ohlund went a few rounds with Iginla for example.

 

[Big Phil]

Mattias Ohlund, Jonathan Ericsson and Douglas Murray fought and did it pretty well.


Ohlund went a few rounds with Iginla for example.

Man, is that it? There has to be a Swedish heavyweight we aren't thinking of. Is Ulfie #1 then?

 

[PatrikBerglund]

Man, is that it? There has to be a Swedish heavyweight we aren't thinking of. Is Ulfie #1 then?

Ulfie couldn't fight his way out of a wet edition of the trash Washington post.

Douglas Murray is the best Swedish fighter of all time...and he wasn't even a good fighter, just absurdly strong.

 

[Big Phil]

Ulfie couldn't fight his way out of a wet edition of the trash Washington post.

Douglas Murray is the best Swedish fighter of all time...and he wasn't even a good fighter, just absurdly strong.

Ulf fought 81 times to Doug's 37. I'll agree about Ulf, I never said he was a "good fighter" though, just that he did fight quite a bit.

 

[Garl]

Best swedish fighters were Douglas Murray and Mats Hallin. Also Bob Nystrom if you count him aswell.

 

[sr edler]

Man, is that it? There has to be a Swedish heavyweight we aren't thinking of. Is Ulfie #1 then?

Are there any Finnish, Czech, Russian, Slovak heavyweights? Except Chara I can't think of many. Andrei Nazarov? Fighting just isn't part of European ice hockey culture. If you want to hit people in the head/face you're either into boxing or MMA. Mauler Gustafsson is pretty good. Not as good as Olli Jokinen though.

 

[Big Phil]

Are there any Finnish, Czech, Russian, Slovak heavyweights? Except Chara I can't think of many. Andrei Nazarov? Fighting just isn't part of European ice hockey culture. If you want to hit people in the head/face you're either into boxing or MMA. Mauler Gustafsson is pretty good. Not as good as Olli Jokinen though.

Hard to think of a good European heavyweight come to think of it outside of Chara obviously. He's fought 86 times. It's more a North American thing.

 

[tapi]

Sami Helenius

 

[KasperTheGrittyGhost]

Ericsson doesn’t do it very often for some reason, but when he was in GR he was a very good fighter.

 

[Bronson]

Are there any Finnish, Czech, Russian, Slovak heavyweights? Except Chara I can't think of many. Andrei Nazarov? Fighting just isn't part of European ice hockey culture. If you want to hit people in the head/face you're either into boxing or MMA. Mauler Gustafsson is pretty good. Not as good as Olli Jokinen though.

Sami Helenius from Finland, Krzysztof "The Polish Hammer" Oliwa from Poland, David "Crap" Koci from Czech Republic and Evgeny "Artie the Animal" Artyukhin from Russia. Oliwa was the only one of those who had anything resembling a career in the NHL (164 fights and 1447 PIM in 410 games!) and is afaik the only Polish citizen to have his name on the Stanley Cup. He was also arrested for domestic violence in 2007 but I can't find any info on if he was sentenced or not.

 

[Kim Davis]

Mattias Ohlund, Jonathan Ericsson and Douglas Murray fought and did it pretty well.


Ohlund went a few rounds with Iginla for example.

Mattias Ohlund fought a few times but wasn't very good at it, in my opinion. He was a terrific body checker, though. Back in the olden days, there was a fellow by the name of Thommie Bergman who especially with the WHA Winnipeg Jets at times assumed the role of the enforcer. He did not fight more than 7 or 8 times a season, at the most, but could handle himself. But him and Mats Hallin are the ones that I come to think of, and in the minors there was Fredrik Oduya, who died i motor cycle accident in 2011. He was tough.

 

[Snaibberi]

Are there any Finnish, Czech, Russian, Slovak heavyweights? Except Chara I can't think of many. Andrei Nazarov? Fighting just isn't part of European ice hockey culture. If you want to hit people in the head/face you're either into boxing or MMA. Mauler Gustafsson is pretty good. Not as good as Olli Jokinen though.

Helenius was a true heavyweight. Jarkko Ruutu (67 fights) was a good fighter. Olli Jokinen had 33 fights in NHL and somehow you managed to find the worst example?

 

[sr edler]

Helenius was a true heavyweight.

Okay, excuse me for not remembering that guy and his 155 NHL games as a spare defenseman.

Olli Jokinen had 33 fights in NHL and somehow you managed to find the worst example?

When I saw you type this I went out on YT and immediately found one fight where he got bloodied up by François Beauchemin and another one where he went toe-to-toe with 5'11 slayer of giants Sam Gagner (who almost decked him with a series of punches, Jokinen was down on his knees), so I wouldn't even say the Kesler fight is necessarily his worst one, of those I've seen, and I've only seen 3. Perhaps he's got some gems in the next package of 30? I'll keep on searching.

 

[sr edler]

@Snaibberi Okay, now I've seen three more Jokinen fights. He wrestled down Michal Rozsival and Colin Fraser (Fraser rather quickly), and then had a hugging match with Roenick. He's like Mats Sundin, a big strong guy who is hard to take down if you're in a hugging match, but with awful actual fighting technique.

Oh, and this one. Couldn't deck Tomas Kaberle despite open target.