Carcillo vs. Gaborik

Apparently, a lot of people are taking offense to Carcillo fighting the Rangers' Marian Gaborik the other night. They site Carcillo's "out of control behavior" as "unacceptable". Here's what happened. A scrum broke out after the play near the Flyers' net. OK Tollefsen was going back and forth with someone after the play, and the other players quickly grabbed hold of an opponent, as often happens during scrums after whistles. Dan Carcillo grabbed Gaborik and then their momentum carried them to the back boards.

I'm pretty sure it's every instigator's job to get under the skin of the opponent's skilled players in an attempt to get them off the ice (Avery later attempted to get Carter to fight, but to no avail). So Carcillo's grabbing Gaborik is nothing out of the ordinary.

The following is a numbered timeline of the events as follows:

1. Gaborik threw a couple rabbit punches to Carcillo's face with his gloves still on (not a good idea to rile up Carcillo if you don't want to fight).

2. Carcillo held him at a distance while returning the favor.

3. Gaborik DROPPED HIS GLOVES FIRST, initiating a fight.

4. Carcillo follows by dropping his gloves and Gaborik.

Hey Marian, if you don't want to fight I suggest you don't drop your gloves. If you start a fight I sincerely hope you don't call out the other player by saying, "[Carcillo's] one of those guys that doesn't really care about the puck. He just runs around and that's what he does."

Watch for yourselves.

Dan is the Man