Making sense of the Capitals-Thrashers battle royal

	Caps coach Glen Hanlon was fined $30,000 by the NHL for his actions on Wednesday night. Mitchell Layton/Getty Images
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The ending of Wednesday night's game between the Capitals and Thrashers was either a throwback to old-time hockey or a despicable display of sour grapes and hooliganism, depending on your perspective. In either case, by handing out relatively light suspensions -- some of which were already written into its rulebook -- and not disciplining Caps coach Glen Hanlon beyond automatically incurred fines, the NHL showed that it has limits in how far it will go to prevent late-game goonery.

First, some background: The Caps have been frustrated with the Thrashers all season. Atlanta had come from behind to beat them by identical 4-3 scores in each of three previous meetings, so this was Washington's fourth bad loss against a divisional rival in the first quarter of the season.

With 1:22 left in the game on Wednesday, Thrashers defenseman Andy Sutton received a minor penalty for a high check along the boards against Washington's Andy Green. This started Hanlon yapping through the protective glass at Thrashers' coach Bob Hartley, who did his best to ignore Hanlon. Just because Hanlon was a goaltender in his day, the Caps coach is not one to back down from a challenge. Though Hanlon has never been suspended for an incident such as the one Wednesday night, it is worth noting the night he was serving as the Rangers' backup goaltender during a playoff game in the early 1980s. That evening, Flyers' enforcer Paul Holmgren started shoving some of the Rangers' smaller players, known then as "the Smurfs," near the Rangers' bench. Hanlon reached over the boards, grabbed the much bigger Holmgren and started flailing punches at him and did not stop even when Holmgren got his bearings and started punching back. (Caps' GM George McPhee and Hanlon are nearly identical in their small-size, big-heart approach to the game.)

Hartley's cool approach on Wednesday turned to anger very quickly, after Hanlon sent his chief enforcer, Donald Brashear, out for the next faceoff. Even before the whistle, Hanlon's intentions were clear. Without the last change, Hartley could do nothing but watch what followed, as he had already sent out forward Marion Hossa and defensemen Vitaly Vishnevski and Greg de Vries, none of whom were capable of standing up to Brashear.

After the puck dropped, Brashear attacked Vishnevski, who wanted no part of a scrap and didn't initially drop his gloves. Brashear persisted and eventually spilled a good deal of Vishevski's blood onto the ice. At the same time, John Erskine -- the Caps' 6-foot-4, 215-pound defenseman whose career penalty minutes outnumber his points 369-6 -- jumped Atlanta forward Marian Hossa, who has arguably been the league's MVP over the first half of the year. Hossa fared better than Vishnevski in dodging punches. The remaining combatants, Washington's Matt Bradley and Atlanta's Greg de Vries, were on a more equal footing, though de Vries emerged with a bloody lower lip. Vishnevski suffered injuries to his head and hip, when Brashear slammed him to the ice.

After officials whistled the players away, Hartley and Hanlon started exchanging verbal threats. Scoreboard cameras caught Hartley saying, "next time, next time." (The Capitals next visit Atlanta on Dec. 15.) Hanlon was caught asking, "Wanna go? Wanna go right now?"