On Monday night, the Canucks ended the Panthers’ 12-game winning streak in dramatic fashion. Jake Virtanen scored with minutes left to send the game to OT. In the extra frame, Daniel scored a goal that tied him with Markus Naslund for the all-time franchise goalscoring lead. All of this came against the hottest team in the league and a guy named Roberto Luongo who looked impenetrable to start this game. But no one cares about any of that because of the chaos ensued immediately following Daniel’s winner. The exact words that sparked this melee are still unclear, but Jason Botchford implied in The Provies that they were in the vein of the tired, sexist “Sedin Sisters” remarks. What happened after these comments were made was all kinds of amazing and worthy of some in-depth analysis.

Instead of going for the traditional team hug, Daniel Sedin skates towards the Panthers’ bench and stares them down. This is ice cold and totally beefs up Daniel’s tough guy resume.  

The Sedins’ reaction to whatever was said leads me to believe that the comments were not just the run of the mill “Sedin Sisters” ones that, unfortunately, we’ve all heard about a thousand times. The Sedins have had to react to “sisters” chatter more than should be necessary, and each time they do so calmly, noting correctly that such comments are reflections of the speaker, or of the speaker’s opinion of women, rather than reflections of the Sedins and their character. Perhaps tonight was the final straw, and one degrading comment was enough to set both twins off. But after so many years of watching the twins shrug off the lazy, sexist “sisters” comments, I’m guessing that whatever the culprit said was a step beyond what we’ve all heard so many times. We can’t know for sure, though, and Botchford’s assumption is as good as anyone’s. 

I don’t want to put words in Daniel’s mouth, but I do like to think that his exchange with the bench went something like this: 

Now, the fun stuff. After the celebration, Radim Vrbata and Alex Edler can be seen heading for the dressing room. But the team muscle (Derek Dorsett and Daniel Sedin) was making a beeline for the Panthers’ bench:

Immediately, a crowd formed. Brandon Prust found his head fully encased in Al Montoya’s catcher.

Sportsnet even captured Willie’s jog back to the bench to see why none of his players had appeared for his post-game chat. 

Soon, Luongo was using his stick as either a weapon or a means of separating the scrum. 

Somehow, all of Tanev’s trademark flow ended up in front of his face. How does this even happen?

   

Literally everyone was involved in this brawl. Young Ben Hutton found himself in a one-on-one battle on the far left and Linden Vey can be seen fending off Reilly Smith.

Zoom in and find Ryan Miller, who hasn’t even played since returning from injury, holding both Brian Campbell and Steven Kampfer. 

Meanwhile, Luongo and Jacob Markstrom got to catch up!

And Jake Virtanen looked dismayed at the lack of discipline shown by his teammates. “Don’t they know what happens to you when you do this kind of stuff?” thinks young Jake, “Haven’t I taught them anything?” 

Monday was another huge night for the Sedins’ new identities as ruffians. Whatever line was crossed probably should not have been crossed, but the outcome was wildly entertaining. If a milestone night for Daniel Sedin was to be overshadowed by a bench-clearing fiasco, at least it was Daniel who got to start it. Torts would be so, so proud of this group.