First Rivet versus Dagenais, and now the two most important pieces to the Habs attack go at it. The first fight wasn’t really much to talk about basically a rookie in a slump going at it with a veteran, and thus not a big deal. However the latter… is much more disturbing.
This all started this morning in practice with Koivu giving Ribs a shot in the stomach with his stick, and moments later the two glanced at each other, words must have been said and it ended with Koivu jumping Ribeiro , the team then jumped into the scrum to break it up , but not before Darren Langdon had the chance to hit Ribeiro. The first fight alone is not as significant , but this second one is for many reasons. Rivet and Koivu are very close friends , as are Dags and Ribs, having the friends fight each other on two seperate occasions cannot be good for the locker room. Then of course there is the French versus English media non-sense.
Koivu no doubt will hear some boo’s Thursday night, as will Ribs. There is no reason for these two to be at odds really, the only time the play together has been on the PP where they have played very well together up until recently, otherwise they are never on the ice at the same time. Could Koivu or Ribeiro be traded? The question would never come up before this season. Bob Gainey is not the type to panic, Brisebois is still on the team depite his off-ice problems from last season. We’ll know more tonight around 6pm, tune into RDS for more details and probably a video of what happened this morning.
This news isn’t good at all, for it was the captain who jumped Ribs. Alot of Habs fans are also big Saku fans, but it doesn’t look good when you can’t even control yourself in practice. Koivu wouldn’t talk to the media after the practice while Ribs said what he was supposed to say ” High up tempo practice, let’s hope it carries into the game” Many were sure the Habs would turn it around after losing these 4, but this altercation involving our two most talented players could have fans doubting this team big time. Let’s all hope for the best… we might not be able to win another game this year, but let’s all just get along… sigh.