It was Fight Night in St. Paul on Thursday as the Minnesota Wild and Philadelphia Flyers gave fans in attendance a ticket to both a hockey game and a full boxing card.
First, the heavyweights went toe-to-toe. The Wild’s Ryan Reaves and Flyers’ Nic Deslauriers calmly made the arrangement at a first-period faceoff and it crescendoed into a technical bout.
It wasn’t the fireworks show many would expect with these two infamous fighters getting into it. But after setting up and with the crowd waiting for the first punch with bated breath, Reaves got Deslauriers in a stranglehold and landed the stronger collection of the exchanged blows.
After the two strongmen went to the penalty box, it took just 15 seconds for another fight to break out.
This bout was not as drawn out as the first one, but the environment was used to Wade Allison’s advantage. After a couple seconds of sizing each other up, the Flyers winger pinned Mason Shaw to the boards and was able to get the takedown.
And you wouldn’t believe what happened next.
Just one second after the puck was dropped for the faceoff Shaw and Allison went their separate ways, Marcus Foligno and Zack MacEwen dropped the night’s fifth and sixth pair of gloves for a powerful scrimmage.
The first fight had the big names, the second had the emotion, and the third had the haymakers.
All three fights happened within just 16 seconds on the game clock. Somehow, they were not at all connected with one another and happened with a completely different combination of players on the ice.
After the dust settled, the Wild had more fighting majors than shots on goal at that point in the game. Maybe the next time these two teams square off they should switch out the boards for some ropes and turnbuckles.
More from Yahoo Sports