The Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers are locked in an absolute struggle as the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue. Game one of their series featured an absolutely outrageous 98 hits between the two teams.So many hits dished out led to a low scoring affair where both teams struggled to gain an edge on each other, In game two, there was a bit more offence, but that doesn’t mean that the hits slowed down at all.In the second period, Montreal snuffed out a Rangers power play, but center Steve Ott made a late attempt at scoring a hit on Mats Zuccrello. The hit on the Rangers winger almost led to a mini-brawl as tempers started to boil.When the real fracas broke out, Ott found himself on the outside looking in, but it didn’t take long for him to take the hint and join in on the party. Jordie Benn, a Habs defenseman, threw some more punches at Zuccarello.While this was going on, Shea Weber decided to air out some disagreements with Rangers forward J.T. Miller. Both of the players earned five-minute major penalties for their roles in the brawl while Ben and Zuccarello got handed two-minute minor penalties.Ott ended up getting away scott-free and Montreal got a power play for their trouble as the carnage was largely broken up. The rules sometimes don’t always catch the person really responsible for these sorts of moments and there is no way to completely clean it all up.In fact, losing players to the penalties allowed the Habs to discover lineups that had great versatility that they never would have discovered otherwise. Those sorts of nuggets are the things that end up swinging a series in a huge way.

New York Ended up losing the game, so maybe justice was served after all. The series is now tied at 1-1 and the momentum looks to have swung the Canadian club’s way. Time will tell how this series ends up going, we could be headed for the distance here.

One thing is for sure, we are in for an absolute battle the rest of the way.