McIlrath vs. Viel: the year’s most violent, exhausting fight

CINEMA.

That is the word to describe Dylan McIlrath vs Jeffrey Viel’s scrap on Tuesday night as the two slugged it out in front of fans at TD Place in Boston.

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Colby Cohen discuss the fight and what it meant to hockey.

Frank Seravalli: Colby, give me one word to describe this tilt between Washington’s Dylan McIlrath and Boston’s Jeffrey Viel?

Colby Cohen: Violent would be the word that comes to mind, Frank, and I will just add a little asterisk to this. I got tangled up with Dylan McIlrath in a game. I think he played in Hartford back in the day, and I think I ended up on the wrong side of a couple of those rights and lefts from our pal Dylan McElrath, so I know how that feels.

Frank Seravalli:  All right, my one word is exhausting, and it might just be because I’m so out of shape, but watching how long this went on, I was tired of them just watching this, it’s insane. I just think this is one of the longest fights we’ve seen. Well, there just wasn’t a lot of tie-up and protection. You don’t see anybody pulling their head out, you don’t see the double jersey grab. These guys are just old-fashioned, throwing rights, eating punches, not sure I recommend it, but it was violent. It was a great scrap, give both a lot of credit for standing in there. I’m sure they both have nothing but respect for one another for hanging in on a fight like that. Yeah, nothing but respect for both those guys, McIlrath just signing a two-year extension to remain with the Caps, a sort of no maintenance, seventh defenseman and who’s kidding who? Jeffrey Viel is fighting for an NHL roster spot; his messages about how to pump up the Boston Bruins and to send a message to the rest of the group that I wanna be here next year and I wanna be on this team, full marks to them.