Vote Girardi or the terrorists win

A lot happened this weekend, and there's a lot I won't get around to, but I want to make sure to touch on Dan Girardi's fight. Just over halfway through the first period on Sunday, Flyers captain Mike Richards took a run at Nik Zherdev and hit him hard, away from the puck. Girardi - yes, Dan Girardi - went after him. Dropped the gloves with him and fought. It was awesome. It really felt like a hockey player standing up one of his guys. It wasn't this "staged fighting" stuff the NHL is wasting its time talking about now - it was a real fight. Girardi gets an A+.

In addition to my compliments, Girardi also got 17 minutes' worth of penalties. A 5 for fighting to match Richards's (of course), a 2 for instigating (an interesting choice, possibly valid, since he did start it - but it makes you wonder: if the NHL gives extra penalties to "staged" fights where two guys agree to go at it, AND they give extra penalties to the guy who starts it - which fighting DO they approve, exactly?), and a 10-minute misconduct (completely off-the-wall, I guess it's because he fought the captain, so, therefore it's worse, or something?).

But the real point is that regardless of the penalties, Girardi did a good thing. And more importantly, the coach knows it:

"I thought in that situation, in back-to-back games (against) Philly, a team maybe we'll see in the playoffs, I thought it was a good thing. I think that's what Danny's thinking about. I don't like seeing good, hard-hitting hockey have to be addressed with a fight, especially come playoff time. You can't be in that box for no reason. Sometimes being a tough team is a team willing to take a check to make a play, especially at this time of the year...But in that situation, where we're at, and trying to come together as a team, I like what he did."

Now, I'm not saying Renney would have come out against what Girardi did, or benched him for it, but I doubt he would have publicly approved like this. This is the kind of mentality a team needs. Good for Torts, good for Girardi, good for us.