Huge scrum breaks out during Panthers-Senators game as referee issues misconducts to ‘every player on the ice’

Game misconducts are a fairly common occurrence during an NHL game, but every player on the ice receiving one is a completely different story. During the third period of Monday’s game between the Florida Panthers and Ottawa Senators, referee Garrett Rank revealed that “every player on the ice has a 10-minute misconduct among other penalties.”

Midway through the third period, a scrum occurred when Senators star Brady Tkachuk barreled into Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. After Tkachuk made contact with Bobrovsky, several Panthers went after Tkachuk behind the net.

The game had been a powder keg prior to this scrum. There was nearly a benches-clearing brawl toward the end of the second period. Early in the third period, Senators forward Zack MacEwen was ejected for delivering a hit to the head of Panthers star forward Matthew Tkachuk. Tkachuk even got into a fight with Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson prior to that.

With eight minutes remaining in the game, those 10 players receiving their walking papers. The Panthers lost Jonah Gadjovich, Kevin Stenlund, Ryan Lomberg, Dmitry Kulikov and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, while the Senators were without Tkachuk, Erik Brannstrom, Rourke Chartier, Travis Hamonic and Drake Batherson.

“Just a hockey game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said regarding the abundance of misconducts. “You can’t play light in the game. Both teams want to win. You get a little snarly. That was fun. It’s good.”

If that wasn’t crazy enough, Panthers forward Sam Bennett and Senators forward Mathieu Joseph were also ejected after getting into an altercation about two minutes after the 10 misconduct penalties. When it was all said and done, 13 players were ejected during the third period and 167 penalty minutes were handed out (151 coming in the third period).

14 minor penalties were called in addition to the 12 game misconducts along with a bench penalty and two fighting penalties.

“That was mild,” Maurice added. “We only got to about 160-some minutes there. It’s got to get into the 250s before it gets too squirrelly. Sometimes hockey can get like that. That’s part of why the game’s so darn great because it’s graceful and beautiful and physical and angry all at the same time. It’s probably good for both team. You get to make it part of the story of your year.”

The Panthers ended up winning the game 5-0 and had a 4-0 advantage at the time of the initial scrum. Center Eetu Luostarinen added a goal at the 16:32 mark of the third period.