Washington Capitals: Top 10 best fights of all-time

#1 Line brawl vs. Rangers

There may be some recency bias here but everything surrounding that Washington Capitals contest against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden was worth the hype and more. After Tom Wilson hit Artemi Panarin, he only received a $5,000 fine and it infuriated the Rangers so much so that they issued a statement the next night calling out the league and calling the incident a “horrifying act of violence”.

Wilson not only hit Panarin but punches Pavel Buchnevich as well. It set the stage for an epic rematch on May 5 and you knew the Rangers were going to come out with fire. The problem for them was they chose violence and they chose wrongly as the Caps owned them both in the fights and on the scoreboard.

The game started off with a fight right off the face off draw involving the fourth line of Nic Dowd, Carl Hagelin, and Garnet Hathaway of the Caps and Colin Blackwell, Kevin Rooney, and Philip Di Giuseppe. 49 seconds later, Wilson dropped the gloves with Brendan Smith. There was a total of six fights in just the first five minutes of the game.

This fight is a prelude of what’s to come on opening night when the Caps and Rangers renew the rivalry.