This is not the way Brenden Dillon and the New Jersey Devils wanted to celebrate his 1,000th NHL game.
Amid a 5-3 loss to their division rival, the Devils were involved in a highly emotional and physical battle. It started out as your average hockey game. The Devils carried a 2-1 lead into the second period, and it looked like they were going well.
However, just over a minute into the second period, a terrifying incident occurred, when Dmitri Voronkov knocked out Dillon after dropping the gloves. The Devils defenseman face-planted to the ice, and required Connor Brown and a team medical staff member to help him off the ice.
Asked about the incident, and head coach Sheldon Keefe was pointed in his response.
"[Dillon] would never do something like that to another player," Keefe said in a pointed response. "That I know for certain. Yeah, I don't like it. I don't think Dillon knows he's in a fight, and he's tackled from behind. Before he knows it, his helmet's off, his jersey is over his head, and we saw what happened from there."
After the incident with Dillon, chaos ensued. Jonas Siegenthaler and Adam Fantilli mixed it up shortly after. Fantilli was the aggressor, and Siegenthaler eventually obliged. Yet, it was the Devils defenseman who received the worst punishment after he was ejected from the game for improperly securing his fight strap, which was evident when Fantilli ripped his jersey off.
Keefe wasn't a fan of that, either.
"Yeah, it's hard. Listen, I don't like that either. I mean, you all can watch the game back. Siegenthaler receives seven punches before he removed his gloves," Keefe explained. "So, for me, there should be an extra penalty there. I don't know how that works, whether that affects the fact that his jersey shouldn't be tied down because he wasn't a willing fighter, until he just had to try to protect himself.
"Regardless, the rule is you've got to tie down [your jersey]. So from that end, it's unacceptable from Siegenthaler's point of view. But to me, he doesn't go into that wanting to fight. It wasn't until after receiving seven punches that he had to engage. So that's a tough one."
The conversation then turned to Dillon's character.
"All I know is there is no more honorable player in this league than Brenden Dillon. He plays as hard and honest game as anybody in the league," Keefe said.
"There's lots of guys who play with great honor, but nobody exceeds his character and who he is. So it has a very large effect on the team when something like that happens. I wish it hadn't. I wish we could have handled it better, because we've got to play a hockey game. But there's some human side to all of us at the same time."