October 30, 2003

In their first meeting of the 2003-04 season, Central Division rivals Nashville and Detroit were poised to send a message to the other.  After eight goals and 210 penalty minutes (a Nashville franchise record for combined PIM), the Predators came out victorious, 5-3.

Detroit’s Darren McCarty and Nashville’s Jeremy Stevenson danced just 23 seconds into the match, and the fists didn’t stop flying until 32 ticks before the final buzzer. In that span, 46 penalties were handed out, included 18 fighting majors and eight 10-minute misconducts.

The night was a memorable one for Nashville’s Adam Hall, who tangled with both future Hall-of-Famers Chris Chelios and Brendan Shanahan in the third period.  Hard-nosed agitators Kirk Maltby (Detroit) and Scott Walker (Nashville) posted two more chapters in their rivalry, while McCarty and Nashville’s Jamie Allison ended the night with an incredible rock ‘em sock ‘em slugfest.

Meanwhile, on the real score card, Greg Johnson paced the victorious home team with a pair of goals in the second period, while David Legwand tallied the game-winner at 14:35 of the third.