Video: Blood-flicking gesture by Carkner a unique instance for NHL
In the first period of Thursday night's 5-3 New York Rangers win over the Ottawa Senators, Derek Boogaard(notes) scrapped with Matt Carkner(notes). As Carkner skated by the Rangers bench, he appeared to flick or pretend he was flicking blood towards several players:
Carkner was given a 10-minute misconduct along with the five for fighting.
As Bob McKenzie points out, there's no telling whether or not Carkner was just making the motion in a taunting manner of if there was actual blood on his fingers. Carkner wasn't exactly wearing a crimson mask like Ric Flair after the fight, but the idea of potentially tossing blood at another player is something the NHL will take a serious look at.
UPDATE: After the game, the "he said/she said" debate about the incident began.
"He just skated by, wiped his brow twice, maybe three times and just flicked (the blood) at us. I don't know why, but that's what happened," said Brian Boyle(notes). "I was really surprised,"
[...]
Carkner denied flicking blood.
"No, no," he said. "I don't even know who was bleeding at the time. I saw Boogaard was bleeding on the ice. I was just trying to skate off and get our guys going."
