from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Of course a response was required in this case, even if players who deliver legal hits should not have to drop the gloves to defend themselves in the normal course of business. But this was Bedard, so this was not the normal course of business. Everyone including Smith — who had a long second-period bout with Nick Foligno — understood that.

Chicago did the right thing. (There are exceptions to every rule, you know.) But doing the right thing in this case did not safeguard the organizational jewel. This was after the fact. And this serves as another example that regardless of how a club loads up, there is no such thing these days — if ever — as owning a weapon of deterrence. Dave Semenko, he was an exception, right?

While Friday’s second period devolved into a heaping of the bad old days, the building became electric with emotion and intensity ratcheted up to a unusual high temperature. There was a type of tension that is exceptionally rare in regular-season matches. Do I expose myself to attack on social media by telling you it was fun and wildly entertaining?

Sorry, but it was.

Yes, you can tell me there was probably electricity and intensity in the audience when gladiators fought to the death. I’m not for a moment suggesting the league or the sport would be better off by going back to the days of bench-clearing brawls and the ethos of the Broad Street Bullies.

But physicality adds a dimension to the game that enflames the competition. A conflagration every now and then is a welcome departure from the incredibly high-skilled, yet relatively vanilla game that is the norm across a schedule that limits divisional play and tamps down rivalries.

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