NHL Battle: Chaos erupts at puck drop between New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils as 10 players brawl

CNN
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Five out of five is perfect Quarrel It erupted just two seconds after the opening puck dropped between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.

Once the battles were over, a total of eight players – four from each team – were ejected before they had played a minute.

The main conflict was between Rangers forward Matt Rempe and Devils defenseman Curtis McDiarmid, who continued to fight at center ice after other players separated.

When the two teams faced each other at Madison Square Garden last month, the 21-year-old Remby refused to take on McDiarmid early in the game.

“I'll always have a lot of respect for him, he's a young kid just trying to do what he wants to stay in the league and I understand that. “He's going to learn and he's a big, strong, strong kid.” McDiarmid Tell To reporters after the match.

He added that he did not expect other players from both teams to join, describing the mass brawl as a “spur of the moment” incident.

“It's great to see the team bonding like that and supporting each other out there,” McDiarmid said. “After a situation like that, the rest of the team accepted a lot of slow minutes and played hard and played a great game tonight. I didn't get the two points.”

The Rangers went on to win 4-3 after Chris Kreider scored a power-play goal late in the fiery game.

New York's Jacob Trouba, Kandre Miller, Barclay Goodreau and Rempe were fired, while New Jersey's Kevin Pahl, John Marino, Chris Tierney and McDiarmid received their orders to leave.

Meanwhile, Rangers coach Peter Laviolette and Devils interim coach Travis Green engaged in a heated exchange after the brawl.

“There was a lot going on,” Green said Tell Reporters. “Obviously there were five fights to start the match. I don't know if anyone expected that. It's an emotional game.

“As far as Peter and I went, I looked at him screaming and talking to me and I was more than willing to go and talk to him and I had no idea why Peter was so angry.”

He added: “Their players were lining up in battles before the confrontation, and none of this would have happened… if something had happened in the match before.”