Matt's Completely Correct Selection of the NHL's Best Fighting Goaltenders

Regardless of whether hockey purists and traditionalists want to hear it, there are a lot of fans that show up to a hockey game for the fights. While the prevalence of fighting has been on the decline in recent years, there are still few things more exciting than a goalie fight.
So, let’s talk about the best fighting goalies.
Patrick Lalime

(Bonus points go to Lalime for his Marvin the Martian masks.)
Patrick Roy
It’s no secret that Patrick Roy has a bit of a temper, I
mean just take a look at what happened in his first game as an NHL head coach.
So, you’d better believe that in his playing days, Roy, a three-time Stanley
Cup Champion, could be nasty. Roy fought Boston’s Randy Burridge in 1987 while
he was a member of the Montreal Canadians. After leaving the Habs in a trade to
the Colorado Avalanche, Roy would have his more memorable fights in his career.
He seemed to have a real beef with the Detroit Red Wings, fighting twice in
back to back-to-back seasons against them (on a related note, do yourself a
favor and watch some videos of Avalanche-Red Wings games from the late 90’s and
early 2000’s. A bit of a forgotten rivalry, but a great one nonetheless). Roy
took on Mike Vernon in 1997, and Chris Osgood in 1998.
Brent Johnson
A bit of a surprise pick, Brent Johnson didn’t really have
the career numbers that some of the other goalies I've mentioned had, but he still had some degree of success in the NHL with the St. Louis Blues and
Washington Capitals, but it’s his time in Pittsburgh, his last stop in his NHL
career that lands him on the list. More specifically the time he literally broke Rick DiPietro’s face. This lead to a second fight against the Islanders one week later
When one thinks of tough goalies, it’s impossible to not
think of Ron Hextall. The man was a goal-scoring, punch throwing machine. He
was the first goalie who doubled as an enforcer, as evidenced here by the time
he jumped Chris Chelios in Game 6 of the 1989 Wales Conference finals. Hextall
would claim that this was retribution for a Chelios elbow that knocked out the
Flyers’ Brian Propp. This beating earned ol’ #27 a twelve game suspension.
TWELVE. GAMES. Hextall was the original goalie who wasn’t afraid to chuck some
knucks.
Ray Emery
But, if Hextall was the original, I’d say that Ray Emery was
maybe the best example of a fighting goalie. The man was mean, and probably the
best fighter to ever strap on a pair of pads. Emery even put boxers on his mask including Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Joe Frazier, and Rocky Balboa. He famously laid an unholy beat down on the Capitals’ Braden Holtby. Razor caught a lot of flack from critics
who said that he shouldn’t have gone after Holtby because the Caps’ netminder
wasn’t interested in fighting. I think he just didn’t want to square up with
the likes of Ray Emery.
However, Emery wasn't just a good fighter. Razor had a hand in leading three different teams to the Stanley Cup finals: The 2006-07 Ottawa Senators, the 2009-2010 Philadelphia Flyers, and 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks. With the Blackhawks he would win a Stanley Cup and even placed seventh in Vezina Trophy voting despite being the backup to Corey Crawford.
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