Tales of the Tape: Eric Godard vs. Brian McGrattan

What?  A fight?  Really?  Let's see if I remember how to put one of these together - it's intro, video, summary, poll.  You can do this, Dunman.  You can do this.

It's been exactly three weeks since the last time any Penguin spent five minutes in the box for fighting, and almost a complete month since said Penguin was Eric Godard.  After a few words with his old sparring partner Brian McGrattan (this is their sixth fight since 2004), the two dropped the gloves and got to it.

Good brawl, but Godard seemed to be a bit rusty.  McGrattan started off with the now-frequent jabbing from the held jersey hand, while swinging with his right hand.  Godard bided his time by blocking McGrattan's shots with his face while he looked for an opening.  After throwing it his right, Godard seemed to be a little shaky, but it didn't affect his swings as the two traded blows back and forth.  The two seemed to slow down waiting to be broken up, but when no one came, they started at it again.  Godard took some more shots to the head while looking for his opening, including one that looked to connect good and got the Calgary fans cheering.  Finally, the two seemed to run out of gas and after a particularly exhausted-looking swing from McGrattan, the linesmen finally broke the two up.

I'm calling it a loss for Godard here.  While he did bloody McGrattan's nose (which was called his "right nose" if you listen), Godard took more shots than he gave out, and McGrattan definitely got the better shots in to his face.  Godard still put on a pretty good show, and it was good to see him back at it.  Imagine had Craig Adams been in this situation.

With their three weeks of fightlessness (catch that one, spell check), the Penguins are no longer near the top of the fightingest teams in the NHL.  Godard only has six for the season, far short of Tampa's awesomely named Zenon Konopka, who has 18 (but none with a Penguin).  Next up is Edmonton who is seventh in the league with 38 fights this season.  Zack Storini leads them will 11 fights and former Pen Ryan Stone has 4.