#like oooooooo let me recount something really fucking stupid that happened 2 years ago that no one has ever forgotten

[ratatatastic]

What did Nico H do to Barky??

This is specifically referring to an incident on Dec 17 2022 where Nico and Sasha were lining up for a face-off where Nico crosschecked his knee in the first period and subsequently Sasha would not start the second and would not come back to finish the game at all.

He would miss 3 games and end up playing again on Dec 29 2022, this was also after the time he came back from pneumonia so he hadn't already played in like 2 weeks so to see him out again wasn't exactly great news which only spurred on what some might call an excessive reaction, not to mention the whole "Dont hurt our Captain!"-ness of it all. Also Matthew was out with illness the game before against the Penguins and had just come back for the game against Jersey and it just felt like the team was always down a couple players due to illness or injury so to have your Captain out AGAIN made this game way chippier than it would've been for perhaps any other team.

Naturally the kitties did not take kindly to what they saw as a dirty play (despite later on Sasha reassuring media he didn't think Nico did it on purpose or that he's a dirty player) and checked him every chance they got, and then the next matchup after that.

And well, if you noticed since then kitties have specifically targetted Nico and have played him a lot harder than other Devs (because he's a great 2-way player you HAVE to play him harder but sometimes you can't help but think if theres something of a grudge there) which is why he ends up in a lot more scrums against us and I'm afraid Matthew seems to have the biggest grudge against him lol Ekky's definitely tied for like 2nd with the way he's always roughing up Devs doesnt specifically have to be Nico just /a/ Dev and it's been 2 years