Niklas Kronwall annihilates Ryane Clowe; Joe Thornton dives

A. Isaac Senior Editor

Niklas Kronwall hit1 283x214 Niklas Kronwall annihilates Ryane Clowe; Joe Thornton dives

Last week during Game 3 of the Red Wings-Sharks series, Niklas Kronwall knocked out Dany Heatley and sent him to the locker room with a pretty massive headache. Although Heatley returned, he appeared to be dazed for the rest of the game. His teammates vowed revenge on his behalf and Ryane Clowe went as far as saying that he’d love a chance to square off against the defenseman.

Clowe got into it with Justin Abdelkader at the end of Friday’s game, with each player receiving double roughing minors for shoving and punching. Clowe said afterwards he wished it had been Kronwall, and reiterated that Saturday. The anger stems from Kronwall’s big hit in Game 3. “Did you see that hit he had on Dany Heatley?” Clowe said. “Yeah. I just wished I was lined up against Kronwall.”

Well, Kronwall must have kept that quote in his memory bank because when the opportunity arose in Game 5, he didn’t hesitate to “square off” against Clowe.

What seemed like a pretty uneventful series will now return to Detroit for a Game 6 tomorrow night. The Sharks have had the “choker” label attached to them before, but suffice it to say, a 3-0 comeback by the Wings would be disastrous for many players on this teams. One of those players, Patrick Marleau, drew the ire of Versus analyst and former player Jeremy Roenick when he called him “gutless” not once, but twice on national TV last night.

And, oh yea, we’d feel remiss if we didn’t add this video of arguably the lowest point in Joe Thornton’s career. He won’t be winning any Lady Byng trophies in the future with this kind of dramatical performance.

What'd you think of this?

Cast My Vote

Other Stories You Might LIke

comment on this story

blog comments powered by Disqus