{"id":555660,"date":"2026-04-19T00:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T00:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555660\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T00:48:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T00:48:30","slug":"stanley-cup-playoffs-2026-brady-tkachuk-jordan-staal-fight-3-seconds-into-hurricanes-game-1-win-over-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555660\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanley Cup playoffs 2026: Brady Tkachuk, Jordan Staal fight 3 seconds into Hurricanes’ Game 1 win over Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

No fighting in the Stanley Cup playoffs? Apparently, no one told the Ottawa Senators<\/a>\u2019 Brady Tkachuk<\/a> and the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>\u2019 Jordan Staal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the puck dropped for Game 1 of their first-round NHL playoff matchup, the two team captains dropped their gloves right after the opening faceoff and began tussling three seconds into the contest.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk appeared to have the advantage initially, connecting with a couple of right-handed punches. But Staal shook off those blows and countered with an upper cut, then followed with a punch that knocked Tkachuk to the ice. From there, officials stepped in and separated the two captains.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s unlikely to be remembered that Tkachuk won the opening faceoff. Especially when his team suffered a 2-0 defeat<\/a> in the first game of their playoff series.<\/p>\n

After gloves dropped, the playoff game continued<\/p>\n

The remainder of the first period was relatively anti-climactic after those opening fisticuffs with the Senators and Hurricanes tied 0-0. But Carolina took a 1-0 lead two minutes into the second period with Logan Stankoven<\/a> scoring on a wrist shot.<\/p>\n

Ottawa appeared to have scored the tying goal early in the third period with Drake Batherson<\/a> flicking the puck past Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen<\/a>. The play was ruled a goal on the ice but replay could not conclusively determine that the puck crossed the goal line when Andersen caught it with his glove, so the score was waived off.<\/p>\n

Four minutes later, Taylor Hall<\/a> deflected in a rebound off a long shot by Stankoven to give Carolina a two-goal advantage. That was enough of a lead for Andersen, who stopped all 22 shots he faced from the Senators. On the other side of the ice, Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark<\/a> saved 27 of 29 shots.<\/p>\n

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Carolina takes a 1-0 series lead with Game 2 scheduled for Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Hurricanes won the Metropolitan division with a 53-22-7 record<\/a> for 113 points. That matched them with the Senators, who earned the second wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference at 44-27-11 for 99 points. The winner of this series will face either the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> or Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in the second round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No fighting in the Stanley Cup playoffs? Apparently, no one told the Ottawa Senators\u2019 Brady Tkachuk and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[536,29,1744,1239,5,1284,539,520,4,25,56,100,864,104,1110,62769],"class_list":{"0":"post-555660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-brady-tkachuk","9":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","10":"tag-drake-batherson","11":"tag-frederik-andersen","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-jordan-staal","14":"tag-linus-ullmark","15":"tag-logan-stankoven","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-ottawa-senators","18":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","19":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","20":"tag-playoff-series","21":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","22":"tag-taylor-hall","23":"tag-team-captains"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116428623335574171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}