There were a few scraps in the Blackhawks-Jets game Monday, and the friction gave way to a fight between Hawks forward Drake Caggiula and Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien.
Byfuglien knocked Caggiula to the ice with 13 seconds left in regulation, then pushed him down as he tried to stand up, and that led to punches. Byfuglien landed several shots to Caggiula’s head before officials broke them up, and the two were hit with matching five-minute major penalties.
“I don’t love it,” Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. “Surprised that we didn’t get a power play out of that one, but [he] seems to be OK, so that’s a positive because he has a big impact on our team.”
#NHLJets Byfuglien clearly had enough of Caggiula #WPGvsCHI pic.twitter.com/Txb7Hz7wap
— Michael Remis (@mremis) April 2, 2019
While Colliton didn’t like the double penalty call, it seemed like he also wished Caggiula hadn’t taken the bait.
The biggest concern with Caggiula is that he just came back from a concussion. He suffered one Feb. 27 and missed more than a month before returning Saturday. This was his second game back.
“You never want to see him taking hits to the head — anybody for that matter,” Duncan Keith said. “Buff’s a good guy… We don’t ever want to see a player, especially on our team, getting hit in the head like that, but [Caggiula] brings a lot of energy and feistiness to our team and we need that.”
Byfuglien played for the Hawks from 2005 through ’10, helping them win a Stanley Cup. They traded him to the Jets (the Thrashers at that time) in the 2010 offseason.
