BS45
Registered User
You are dead wrong!!! The players that were on the ice spoke about the chain of events and Marino picked Miller!"no reason to pick him other than he thought he was the weakest link"
How about he was just the closest player?
Looked like Marino and Tierney were gliding over to the Lazar/Vesey fight to possibly knock the gloves out of the way to clear the area (pure guess by me), though the two of them quickly go down to the ice. At that point, Marino would have to skate around Tierney or Miller in order to get to Trouba.
Again, it was a no-win situation for Marino as both Rangers defensemen were bigger and much heavier than him. Miller also drops his stick and gloves before Marino, so it was more a matter of the two of them being paired up than Marino going out and choosing someone to match up with.
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This is straight from Miller in the Athletic article.....-
John Marino is no fighter either, but the Devils defenseman skated over toward Miller to engage as the rest of the fights were going. “I was kind of just hanging out watching the fireworks,” Miller said. “I saw (Marino) come over to our side of the ice, he looked at me, gave me a nod and I was like, ‘Why not?’
“I thought it was gonna be a bad idea. But I guess he found out.”
Trouba had this to say on the subject “There’s two guys left, Key starts fighting and it’s like, we’re not going to be the only two not fighting,” said Trouba, who matched up with Chris Tierney, a journeyman center who had never fought before in the NHL. “That’s not probably the guy I should be going after, but those were the two guys that were left.”
So Miller and Trouba were not planning on fighting. Tierney was not planning on fighting either.
Goodrow wanted to let Rempe know they had his back as he said here.
Rempe knew he was going to fight Kurtis MacDermid, but no one else seemed to know what was coming next, even though there were hints from the Rangers’ room following Thursday’s optional practice — a skate just for the healthy scratches, the goalies and the two-second brigade mentioned above — that the guys on the ice weren’t going to allow Rempe to go it alone at the Garden.
“Kinda,” Goodrow said if he knew what was coming after the puck dropped. “It wasn’t really planned out or anything; it just happened. It’s just about having each other’s backs. Remps has been doing that for us since he’s been here, so it was time for us to step up. Rivalry game, MSG — doesn’t get much better than a line brawl to start it off.”
So he dropped his gloves and skated past Tierney, the opposite center straight to Dahl to fight him because he didn't want to fight Tierney who he is good friends with.
Arthur Staple who wrote the article then added-
Miller then informed us all that he mixes in some boxing lessons with his offseason training. Marino might have chosen a different partner if he knew that.