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[WedgeX]

The culmination of nearly a years worth of rivalry between Detroit and Colorado.

Starting in 1996 with Claude Lemieux checking Kris Draper, a personal hero of 9 year old me, into the boards from behind.

From the Detroit Free Press.

”I was sitting on the bench, and it happened right in front of me," McCarty said in a recent interview with the Free Press. ”I saw Lemieux coming at Kris, and it was like seeing a car crash in slow motion. I could literally hear the bones break in Drapes' face. It was difficult for us to process. Lemieux was an agitator and a cheap-shot guy. But he was one of the best playoff performers ever." (Lemieux is ninth all-time in playoff goals and fourth in playoff game-winning goals.)

Draper suffered a broken jaw, broken nose, broken cheekbone and concussion. He would have his mouth wired shut for several weeks. A week after he left the hospital, the team doctor gave McCarty pliers to carry in case Draper choked on his food.

”When I saw Kris in the hospital that night," McCarty said, ”I told him I would take care of Lemieux. I just didn't know when. But as my uncle once told me, sometimes the anticipation of death is worse than death itself."

With Draper knocked out, the Wings were unable to best the Avalanche in the playoffs, with the Avs going on to win the Stanley Cup. Just under a year later, the Wings and Avalanche met for the last time during the regular season.

At the 18:22 mark, things escalated when Colorado's Forsberg slammed Igor Larionov backward into the boards. Larionov, never known to fight, grabbed Forsberg around the neck and wrestled him to the ice.

”I simply had enough. You can only take so much," Larionov said in a recent interview.

As Forsberg and Larionov wrestled each other without throwing punches, McCarty started looking for Lemieux. Knowing that, Foote grabbed McCarty.

”(Brendan Shanahan) knew that I wanted Lemieux," McCarty said, ”so he chopped at Foote, which sent me loose."

The Wings would go on to win the Stanley Cup that year, and the next.

In the epic game between the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche on March 26, 1997, at Joe Louis Arena, there were 39 penalties, 148 penalty minutes and 10 fights

An accounting of each individual fight that night.

Video of the full fights that night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P4wg21mLf8&

 

[3rdman]

I saw that hit on tv when it happened...An "explosion of teeth" is generally how I describe it to others. Brutal...Lemieaux should have been arrested, really.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

That made me physically ill.

 

[GitarooMan]

I remember watching that game with the Lemieux hit. That was the dirtiest shit.