page_title: Philadelphia Flyers–Ottawa Senators brawl
section_title: Game summary
hierarchical_section_title: Philadelphia Flyers–Ottawa Senators brawl / Game summary
caption_attribution_description: Donald Brashear fighting Sheldon Brookbank
context_page_description: The Flyers–Senators brawl was a National Hockey League regular season game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Ottawa Senators that resulted in a league record for penalty minutes. The game was played on March 5, 2004, at the Wachovia Center, the home arena of the Flyers. Philadelphia won the game by the score 5–3. In all, 419 minutes were assessed, passing the previous NHL record of 406. The 213 minutes assessed against Philadelphia was also a record, as was the number of penalty minutes in the third period.
  The events were precipitated by an incident in the previous meeting between the two teams, when Ottawa's Martin Havlat had swung his stick at Mark Recchi's head. Just under two minutes before the end of the game, enforcers Donald Brashear of the Flyers and Rob Ray of the Senators engaged in a fight. As they skated off to the penalty box, Brashear became involved in another scrap, and the rest of the players on the ice for each team, including goaltenders Robert Esche and Patrick Lalime, began to fight. On both of the next two face-offs to restart the game, further fights occurred.
context_section_description: Despite having what Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press described as "bad blood" between them, the first period of the game passed without serious incident. Chris Neil opened the scoring for Ottawa just over four minutes into the period, but the Flyers then took the lead when Claude Lapointe and Mark Recchi scored 30 seconds apart. Danny Markov added a third for Philadelphia to give them a two-goal lead. The only penalty assessed in the period was for holding against Philadelphia's Tony Amonte.
  Both teams scored a goal each in the second and third periods. In the second period, an early tripping penalty against Ottawa's Mike Fisher put the Flyers on the power play, during which Kim Johnsson extended Philadelphia's lead to 4–1. Ottawa received another penalty less than a minute later, which sent Todd Simpson to the penalty box for holding. A Flyers penalty against Radovan Somik for slashing Martin Havlat resulted in a power play goal for the Senators' Zdeno Chara, closing the score to a two-goal gap once again. Fisher subsequently received his second penalty of the game, this time for high-sticking.
  The third period began with Alexei Zhamnov notching the Flyers' fifth goal of the game to make it 5–2. Shortly thereafter, the game started to become more heated; Zhamnov and Daniel Alfredsson were assessed coincidental minors for roughing nine minutes into the period, and three minutes later Bryan Smolinski and Mark Greig were similarly penalized. Simpson returned to the box soon after, for slashing Michal Handzus, but Philadelphia's power play when cut short when they received a penalty for having too many men on the ice.
  With 1:45 left in the third period, Flyers' enforcer Donald Brashear hit Rob Ray, an enforcer for the Senators, from behind, instigating a fight between the pair. When he was asked after the game why he started the fight, Brashear replied with his own question: "Did you see the last game?" His reply was interpreted as being a reference to Havlat's slashing penalty against Recchi. Brashear was generally considered to win the fight, with Tim Panaccio of The Philadelphia Inquirer claiming that Brashear "destroyed Rob Ray." The fight left Ray bloodied, and as Brashear was being escorted off the ice by the linesman, he exchanged blows with both Brian Pothier and Todd Simpson. Philadelphia's Patrick Sharp attempted to restrain Simpson, who then pushed Sharp to the ice and started throwing punches at him. Markov intervened, and fought Simpson. At the same time, Branko Radivojevic and Shaun Van Allen had paired off for a fight, and Ottawa's goaltender, Patrick Lalime, skated the length of the ice to fight fellow goaltender Robert Esche; both received penalties for leaving their crease as well as fighting majors.
  The game restarted with two new goaltenders and the Senators on the power play, but within three seconds, the fighting started again — Ottawa's Chris Neil poked Radovan Somik with his stick, and the pair started scrapping. At the same time, Zdeno Chara started a fight with the Flyers' Mattias Timander, for which the former received an instigator penalty. Both fights angered Philadelphia Head Coach Ken Hitchcock, who claimed that, "Their tough guy [Rob Ray] got beat up and then their next two lines fought guys who don't fight." Flyer General Manager Bob Clarke was also critical, saying, "I understand Rob Ray fighting Donald Brashear. That's okay. [...] But don't go after guys who don't know how to defend themselves like Somik and Timander." As Chara had been ejected from the game, his penalty was served by Martin Havlat, who had been placed there to protect him from any possible attempts at retribution. Chara's penalty meant that at the next restart, the teams were back to even strength, with four players each. Immediately after the ensuing face-off, Michal Handzus and Mike Fisher took part in the seventh fight of the game.
  There were no fights straight after the next restart, which resulted in booing from the crowd. Within 24 seconds of that restart, the crowd had their way; Mark Recchi hit Wade Redden, who 
caption: Donald Brashear (left, playing for the Washington Capitals) instigated the fight which started the brawl.
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