from Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun,

The familiarity of teams playing each other nine or 10 times was supposed to turn them into bitter rivals who wanted to rip each other’s head off, but that hasn’t been the case.

In the last game of three in row that saw the Canucks beat Ottawa by a combined score of 16-3, there was seven insignificant minors that did not involve somebody named Brady Tkachuk.

In years gone by, getting embarrassed like that would piss players off.

When the Coyotes and Blues played a record seven consecutive games against each other earlier this month, only six minors were called in the last one. One was for delay of game, another for interference.

We’re not expecting bench-clearing brawls, but come on. Teammates used to beat each other up more in practices.

Heading into Thursday night, there had been just 114 fights in 562 games.

more