Chara gets mad, throws punches at 3 Hurricanes.

Don't poke the bear. 

It is a lesson that the young Carolina Hurricanes roster learned the hard way on Sunday afternoon when they took on the New York Islanders. The Hurricanes were cruising in the early going of this one with a 2 - 0 lead over the Islanders in the opening period, but they may have inadvertently given the Islanders some additional momentum in the later stages of the period.

Things heated up when Islanders veteran defenseman Zdeno Chara, the biggest man on the ice by quite a margin, delivered a hit in the corner to Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov. It would appear that during the contact in the corner Svechnikov would catch Chara up high either with his hands or his stick, and did so with enough force to leave the normally gentle giant bleeding from the face.

It would seem that either the blow itself or the sight of his own blood sent the 45 year old Chara into a rage and he began attacking every Hurricanes player that would approach him on the ice. In total Chara would throw punches at 3 different members of the Hurricanes before the officials would intervene and send Chara to the box, although he would only receive a minor penalty for the incident which was also offset by a minor penalty awarded to the Hurricanes on the play.

It was Hurricanes forward Max Domi who appeared to get the worst of the big man's wrath, showing tremendous courage by getting up in the face of a much bigger man but also eating a pretty good shot to his own face for the effort. After Chara and Domi had been separated by the National Hockey League officials overseeing this one, Svechnikov thought it would be a good idea to skate over and check things out. Chara proceeded to give him a few shots for good measure as well, resulting in Svechnikov quickly moving away from the now enraged giant. Chara would hit one more player before it was all said and done, but this punch to the chest was more like a shove than anything else.