By: Tim Dumas | Follow me on Twitter @TimDumas
He scores goals and does not hesitate to drop his gloves. Linus Ullmark not only stops pucks – sometimes with his head – at an elite level, but the Boston Bruins goalie is also showing his old-school side.
Ullmark’s performance this season has one comparison: Ron Hextall, the recently fired general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hextall was the first NHL netminder to score a goal against the Bruins in 1987 and was also known for his bruising side.
Hextall won the Vezina Trophy and was a playoff MVP for the Philadelphia Flyers, but he was the closest thing to Gordie Howe between the pipes. Hextall’s 569 penalty minutes are the most all-time for a goalie.
But he wasn’t out there slashing the backs of ankles like Billy Smith. Hextall engaged in one of the greatest goalie fights of all time when he squared off with Toronto netminder Felix Potvin at the end of a game in Philadelphia in 1996.
Most of the top goalie fights – including a few involving Patrick Roy – occurred during the regular season. Clashes during the playoffs are rare, although Philadelphia’s Garth Snow and Buffalo’s Steve Shields threw down during their 1997 postseason series.
Ullmark wasn’t engaged with the opposing goalie in the final minutes of Sunday’s game in Florida, but I half-expected Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to come cascading into the picture after Ullmark took off his helmet and blocker.
The leading Vezina Trophy candidate this season, Ullmark, in February became the first NHL goalie to score since Pekka Rinne in 2020 and only the 13th netminder to do so.
If Ullmark did get involved in a fight, he would not have been the first Bruins goalie to do so. In 1969, Gerry Cheevers fought Toronto’s Forbes Kennedy in their first-round playoff series. Cheevers’ 62 penalty minutes during the 1979-80 season are the fifth most all-time in a single season. Hextall holds the record with 113 in ’89-90.
In 1992, Boston’s Andy Moog went at it with Buffalo’s Wayne Presley, who amassed nearly 1,000 penalty minutes during his 12-year NHL career. The Bruins’ most notable pugilist, however, may be Byron Dafoe.
In a game at the Garden on January 17, 2002, Dafoe skated the length of the ice after Bill Guerin started a fight with Ottawa’s Chris Neil. Dafoe ended up hammering Senators goalie Patrick Lalime, much to the home crowd’s delight.
Dafoe was also involved in another, more memorable tussle four years earlier at the Garden. A fight first broke out between Washington’s Craig Berube, the head coach of the St. Louis Blues, and Don Sweeney, now the Bruins’ GM.
After Dafoe began a fight with Dale Hunter, whose 3,565 penalty minutes are second all-time to Dave “Tiger” Williams (3,971), Capitals’ goalie Olaf Kolzig came from his own end to start a battle with Ken Belanger. Dafoe then pulled Kolzig off Belanger, and the two squared off in what was more of a wrestling match.
Adding to the story is that Dafoe was the best man at Kolzig’s wedding and vice versa. Their fight was 25 years ago, but it seems a lot longer than that, back when goalies weren’t afraid to throw down the gloves.
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