It was April 6, 1998, and the Canadiens season was winding down with games in Washington and New York.
I was assigned to the trip in place of Red Fisher. Near the end of the second period, there was a play behind the Washington net and late-season Capitals call-up Stewart Malgunas, a 6-foot, 200-pound hacker, slashed Saku Koivu on the back of the hand.
Koivu suffered a fractured hand and would miss the final six games of the regular season and the first four games of the playoff series against the Penguins. Malgunas got two minutes and zero supplemental discipline from alleged NHL disciplinarian Brian Burke.
During the game in Madison Square Garden the next night, I was next to Burke in the supplementary seating behind the Rangers' net. Burke, give him credit, was never one to shrink from an argument. We went at it hammer and tongs for most of the first period. I argued that if he wasn't going to hand down a suspension for that one, what was the point? If a guy like Malgunas was allowed to deliver a two-handed chop to Koivu's hand without real consequences, how can the league protect its stars?
For Burke, the injury was an accident, a hockey play, too bad Koivu was hurt right before the playoffs but, hey, stuff happens. We've heard it all a thousand times and I'm sorry to say that 27 years later, things haven't changed.
Oh, Nick Cousins got an absurd US$2,148.44 slap-on-the-pinky fine for a slash that could have broken Ivan Demidov's arm during last week's game against Ottawa played in Quebec City, but the deterrent effect of a fine like that is absolute zero.
If there was any real point to the entire exercise, Cousins would have received a three-game suspension. If I were in the chair Burke once occupied, Ottawa coach Travis Green would have received a three-game suspension as well for his actions in sending out player after player to make trouble in Quebec City -- and seeing each one turned into chopped liver by the fists of the Xhekaj brothers and Jayden Struble.
The Senators responded to the debacle not by deciding to take the high road, but by swinging a trade with the New Jersey Devils, sending Zack MacEwen to New Jersey in exchange for 6-foot-5, 235-pound heavyweight Kurtis MacDermid -- who has 11 goals and 391 penalty minutes in 288 games.
It's the NHL chain reaction: Hulking non-player Matt Rempe of the Rangers terrorized the Devils last season, so the Devils acquired MacDermid. MacDermid took out Rempe in a brawl, but in 23 games with New Jersey, he contributed zero goals and zero assists.
Then after Green's intimidation strategy is badly exposed in Quebec City, he pushes for MacDermid, whom he coached in New Jersey. In theory, Green is now armed and ready for his kind of hockey and if someone delivers a random slash to the arm of one of his stars like Claude Giroux or NHL diving champ Tim Stutzle, MacDermid is there to wreak revenge.
Arber Xhekaj and MacDermid had a brief conversation during Saturday night's tame affair at the Bell Centre and clearly agreed not to go, but you know it's coming.
Look, I have no problem with hockey players who can fight. The Canadiens have the wildly popular Xhekaj brothers, Struble and Josh Anderson, but they can all play. The Senators have Brady Tkachuk (memorably dubbed Brady Upchuck by a Canadiens fan Down East). The Panthers have his brother Matthew, the Capitals have Tom Wilson.
But when you get the likes of MacDermid and Rempe or players like Cousins out there looking to injure the other team's stars, it's the same old, same old NHL carousel, the same mindless cycle of violence.
Koivu did play six games against Pittsburgh and Buffalo in the 1998 playoffs and he even contributed two goals and three assists, though he could barely hold his stick. More than a quarter-century later, nothing has changed.
Lies, rumours &&&& vicious innuendo: Fearless prediction -- Adam Engstrom, chosen 92nd overall in 2022 with one of the picks the Canadiens received as compensation in the Jesperi Kotkaniemi debacle, is going to be a far better NHL player than KK will ever be.
Speaking of the WNBA, Canadiens top brass Geoff Molson and France Margaret Bélanger have joined the ownership group for the expansion Toronto Tempo in the WNBA, which will play two regular-season games at the Bell Centre next year. We take this as a strong sign that Molson and Bélanger hope to bring a WNBA expansion team to Montreal.
Congratulations to Patrice Brisebois on his election as president of the Canadiens' Alumni Association. With Brisebois in charge, association meetings should breeze by.
Heroes: Arber Xhekaj, Florian Xhekaj, Oliver Kapanen, Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Alexandre Carrier, Napheesa Collier, Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham &&&& last but not least, Martin St. Louis -- winner of the Jack Adams Trophy, 2026.
Zeros: Travis Green, Nick Cousins, Dylan Cozens, the NHL department of player safety, Mark Sanchez, Bill Belichick, Deion Sanders, Cathy Engelbert, Wayne Gretzky, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.