Didn't Gabrielle go after Barzal also
He did. It stemmed from a nasty check from behind into the boards by Keegan Kolesar on Cougars captain San Ruopp during the playoffs last year. The hit knocked Ruopp out for the season, and for some reason went unpunished from the game officials. Kolesar declined several offers to fight from the Cougar players, including Gabrielle, who then decided to settle the score by going after the Thunderbird captain. Gabrielle got a one game suspension for going after Barzal. Barzal got a 2 minute slashing penalty for twice swinging his stick at Gabrielle's head and Kolesar got a pat on the back for his check from behind.
As it turned out, there wasn't much season left for Ruopp to miss, but it was a big loss at the time, being the first period of game 3 in what had been a pretty tightly contested series through the first 2 games (OT loss on the road in game 1). The Cougars were already missing another key defenseman (Anderson) and after losing Ruopp gave up some easy goals in game 3. Late in the game, when it was certain to be 0-3 and the rest of the series without Ruopp, that's when Gabrielle took the retribution for the season-ending hit put on his captain.