When the Pens waved good-bye to Mike Rupp during the offseason and re-upped Arron Asham, this is why they did it:

Everybody loves a goalie fight and tonight Brent Johnson showed Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders some grown man business.

Johnson was upset that DiPietro took a high shot at Matt Cooke, with seconds left to go in a game that's outcome was decided.  A staple of Penguin hockey is any player standing up for any other player, and this trend continues as Johnson skates the length of the ice, side steps a ref and then delivers a one-punch message to the offending goalie.

Video after the jump...

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We can pick and choose fights at will from last night's game but this one stands out especially.  Dunman has been a bit busy as of late so I figured I would help out with a Tales of the Tape installment.

It's not a lot of fun when the Penguins take a loss.  Maybe I can help cheer you up with my friends Deryk Engelland and Colton Orr.

Colton Orr vs Deryk Engelland Oct 13, 2010 (via hockeyfightsdotcom)

A smack against the boards led to Engelland and Orr dropping the gloves for a tussle.  This started out looking like a disappointing experience for the Penguins-affiliated fight watcher, but then it happened.  Engelland had a number of shots connected unto his head, and even had his helmet knocked off.  But he was merely charging up his attack.  After all, Guile needed two seconds before unleashing the Sonic Boom.  So too did Engelland, who connected a fist to Orr's face that sent him down to the ice.  And with that, the Penguins get their first fight win of the season.  Well done!

And to make things better, the video provided gives a slow motion shot of the KO blow.  Someone needs to make me an animated GIF of that, stat!

Here we are - another season, more fights to be waged, more Tales of the Tape!  The first game of the season waged no fights, despite being against the dreaded Flyers, but our Pens did not disappoint in the second!  Dropping the gloves were Mike Comrie for the Penguins and Maxim Lapierre of the Canadiens.  Welcome to the Pens, Comrie!

(Video courtesy of Hockeyfights.com)

Well, okay, maybe the Penguins did disappoint.

Lapierre smacked Kris Letang hard against the boards, and Comrie was ready and willing to drop the gloves to stick up for him.  Unfortunately, that's about as far as it got, as both men simply spun around a bit tossing shots that either didn't connect hard or didn't connect at all.  After a questionable camera switch to Mike Rupp (which made me assume the game was being aired on NBC), Comrie apparently got bored of the non-fight and fell to the ice, pulling Lapierre down with him.  This one would be a draw.

For those of you not familiar with this Pensburgh feature, after providing video of the fight and giving my opinion on it, I offer a poll to you, the eager community to weigh in and prove me wrong.  So, people...who won the fight?

Hey, remember how awesome that fight with Bill Guerin was?  This is nothing like that.

 

Mike Rupp took a hit from Trevor Gilliesand decided that them's fightin' actions, but unfortunately, didn't really decide to do much actual fighting.  A few misses were thrown by Rupp before he was taken down with a solid shot.  Loss.

Not the kind of fight you really want to see from your team, so I'll try to help remove some of the pain by offering a distraction to stare at:

You're welcome.

Next up are the Thrashers, but don't expect to see fighting.  Atlanta only has 38 fights this season (last season they had 53).  In comparison, the Penguins are at 44, which is 5 more than they had last season (without Eric Godard for a sizable chunk, too).

Oh, what would you like today, fellow Penguins fans?  A fight in which Bill Guerin gets a solid win?  I think I can help with that.

It looked like Jim Slater pushed Alexei Ponikarovsky a bit, but Guerin seemed to be itchin' for a tussle, so the two began struggling, gloves and sticks flying as they went.  Guerin's second shot knocked Slater's helmet off, then a couple jabs from Slater took off Guerin's.  Guerin got Slater down and started hitting his back, causing Slater to take something of a desperation swing to get him back into the match.  Unfortunately (for him), Guerin kept a hold of his jersey, bringing it up over his head (D2 style).  Guerin composed himself, pulled back for the big swing, and levelled Slater with it.  If that's not a win, I don't know what is.

What, don't believe me?  Here:

(Thanks to Empty Netters).

Is there really any setup necessary here?

As soon as Matt Cooke hit the ice (to a chorus of boos), Shawn Thornton skated up to him and it was ready to go.  Whatever your thoughts on Cooke's hit to Marc Savard, you have to give it to him - he didn't avoid the situation.  He immediately dropped the gloves and accepted the fight.  Cooke got a brief offensive in, but quickly lost it (as well as his helmet) to Thornton's rights.  Cooke went down, the linesmen jumped in, and that was that. 

Well, except that Thornton kept punching and the two had to be pulled apart.  Now, defending your fallen player from a hit like Cooke's is one thing, but Thornton had Cooke cleanly beaten.  Honor guarded and fight won.  Cooke was down and out.  There was no reason to keep going once the linesmen were in, and it won Thornton a 10 minute misconduct penalty.  Now how did he manage to come out of that with Cooke looking like less of a jerk?  That's talent.

The other fight came in the 2nd period with Boston down 1-0 in an attempt to get some momentum going for the Bruins.  Captain Zdeno Charadropped the gloves with Mike Rupp.

This was not a good fight for Rupp.  Starting off unbalanced on his skates, Rupp tried to match swings with Chara, but couldn't get any of his shots to connect.  Chara mixed some solid shots to the helmet (brutal on the hand) with some Jody Shelley-style jersey jabs which clearly shook Rupp up.  A couple shots later, Rupp was face down on the ice, and the linesmen broke the thing up.

The momentum boost didn't work, though.  Despite losing the fight, Rupp answered back with a goal in the third period.  So who's really the winner here?

With these two pretty obvious losses, I'm going to do something different in the poll.  Rather than asking who won the fight, I want your opinion on the effectiveness of Thornton's 'revenge' fight against Cooke.  Fans were yelling for some retribution - I even saw several calls to injure Sidney Crosby which totally makes complete sense.  Cooke hit the ice, dropped the gloves, and that's that.  Right?  Did Thornton go about it right?  Is this thing really over?

Next up is the Hurricanes, who only have 29 fights for the season (24th in the league).  Their only fight this season against the Penguins involved Tim Gleason fighting Bill Guerin.  Not expecting anything from them this time around.