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New Jersey Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon‘s 1,000th career game was cut short on Monday, Dec. 1.
He was shaken up and needed help getting off the ice after a fight in the second period.
The incident happened soon after Devils television announcers did a segment on the career of Dillon, who reached the milestone despite going undrafted. The announcers noted his physical play and showed a couple of his fights.
As play resumed, a scrum broke out in front of Devils goalie Jake Allen. Columbus’ Dmitri Voronkov and Dillon squared off. Dillon’s helmet came off, and Voronkov tied up the defenseman and threw a couple punches, knocking him down.
Dillon hit the ice hard, was down for a while, was wobbly when getting up and was helped off the ice by teammates. Another Devils player served his fighting major.
The Devils lost another defenseman soon after when Jonas Siegenthaler received a game misconduct for not having his jersey tied down during a fight.
Dillon came back to the bench in the second period and skated three shifts before intermission. He didn’t come out for the third period and the Devils played the rest of the game down two defensemen.
Brenden Dillon injury update
Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said Dillon was doing well and was held out of the third period for precautionary reasons.
He was critical of the play on which Dillon was hurt.
“There’s no more honorable player in this league than Brenden Dillon,” he told reporters. “He plays as hard and honest a game as anyone in the league. He would never do something like that to another player. I don’t like it at all.
“I don’t think Dilly knows he’s in a fight. He’s tackled from behind and before he knows it, his helmet’s off, his jersey’s over his head and we saw what happened from there. I don’t like it all.”
Dillon has 42 goals, 179 assists and 949 penalty minutes in 1,000 career games with Dallas, San Jose, Washington, Winnipeg and New Jersey.
This story was updated with new information.