Heading into the second game against each other this week, the preseason New York vs. Boston rivalry has some regular season-caliber chirping before Thursday’s game between the Original 6 rivals at Madison Square Garden.
In Sunday’s game at TD Garden, Bruins defenseman Parker Wotherspoon was upset at being hit late and high twice by Brennan Othmann, the first of which caused Boston trainers to check on him. At the end of the second period, he’d had enough which led to a short fight, where Wotherspoon landed most of the punches.
“It’s part of the game. It comes with it. I don’t go out there and take these games lightly,” Wotherspoon said. “I’m going out there to compete and play hard every shift, just like in the regular season. I like how I handled it.”
At the end of the scrap, Wotherspoon grabbed Othmann’s helmet and flung it aside, which earned him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and scorn from Othmann, who intimated that a veteran shouldn’t fight a kid.
“I respect him for coming in like that. Nothing really happened,” he told The Athletic. “No punches were really thrown. It was more a grab and tussle. I didn’t really appreciate him smacking my head off the ice a little bit and throwing my helmet…. I respect him for coming in and wanting to fight. But it just didn’t really sit well with me that he had to do that considering he played in the NHL basically last year and I’m just a young kid. I get it. I have to answer the bell sometimes. But that situation there, I just didn’t really appreciate that just considering his status.”
Wotherspoon is expected to be in Boston’s lineup. It’s unclear whether Othmann will dress for New Yor
