WATCH: 3rd Goalie Fight of Season, & This One Really Rocked The House

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 ,

There's just something about the Goalie Fight that hockey fans just can't look away from. Maybe it's the unbridled excitement... Maybe it's the emotionally charged drama of it all. Or maybe it's the sheer rarity with which they occur. For the previous six years in the National Hockey League, there had been a complete absence of netminders going at it.

Then the calendar flipped to 2026. And this has, so far, been the Year of the Goalie Fight. It started on January 19th, when Sergei Bobrovsky came the length of the ice to take on Alex Nedeljkovic. Then, less than two weeks later, in the Stadium Series game, no less, Jeremy Swayman and Andrei Vasilevskiy went at it.

Then came Tuesday night in the most famous fisticuffs arena in the world, Madison Square Garden. Igor Shesterkin and Jacob Markstrom were throwing haymakers, and the Garden was back in the fight business. You had to see this one to believe it:

It all started when NJ Devils forward Paul Cotter knocked down Shesterkin while driving to the net. Rangers d-men Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov pinned Cotter against the end boards, but Shesterkin came into the fray as well. That's when Markstrom decided to charge down the ice and challenge Shesterkin. Markstrom ended up getting the worst of it.

A little bit of excitement (okay, a lot of it) for two of the teams (and fanbases) having the most disappointing seasons in the league this year. The New York Rangers are dead last in the Eastern Conference, and the New Jersey Devils aren't too far above them. 

But Shesterkin and Markstrom weren't going down without a fight, as they say. 

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