When Josh Archibald was kept in the penalty box Wednesday in Colorado after his two minutes was over because he didn’t have his helmet, it was another in a confusing headgear scenario in the NHL.
This season, players can’t play without a helmet on; if it falls off in the course of action, as it did to Edmonton Oilers’ captain Connor McDavid earlier this season, the rules state you have to put it back on before you can rejoin the play. McDavid couldn’t do it fast enough and the opposing team scored. In the case of his teammate, Archibald, his lid was broken so he sat bare-headed in the box and he couldn’t just skate back to the Oilers bench without his helmet when his penalty ended in case the puck came his way. If he had done so, the Oilers would have been assessed another penalty.
“I didn’t think it would take that long to get the helmet fixed, two full minutes without a whistle,” said the ace penalty killer Archibald, who’ll be doing that gig against Vancouver Canucks on Saturday. “One of our guys was getting his skates sharpened and another getting his skates fixed. So Harry (assistant equipment manager Brad Harrison) didn’t get to the helmet right away.
“Honestly, I didn’t know the helmet rule. I went to leave the penalty box and one linesman wouldn’t let me go. I guess once you get possession, they blow the whistle, though,” he said.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON?
Archibald has no problem taking punishment with his rambunctious style. He took on the much bigger Colorado defenceman Nikita Zadorov with no thought of his own safety, but he didn’t quite get his dad Jim’s wild streak. Not many were as feisty as Josh’s pop, a right-winger who played college hockey at the University of North Dakota with Oilers coach Dave Tippett.
“Any similarities? They’re both right-wingers,” laughed Tippett. “His dad was a character, he was as tough, as nasty as they come. Josh is a real, good solid player who plays hard all the time. Similar kind of players but his dad played in a different era where there was more nastiness.”
Jim Archibald was smack-dab in the middle of an infamous college brawl with the University of Wisconsin in January, 1982. The former Minnesota North Stars right-winger charged into the beer garden area to fight fans, then ran back and threw a haymaker at a Wisconsin player.
The all-time UND penalty-minutes leader got a five-game college suspension. He once had 308 penalty minutes and 88 points with the Moose Jaw Canucks, and over 300 penalty minutes in the AHL for Springfield. And he was built like his boy.
“He was known to score some goals but he was in the penalty box more than anything,” said Josh. “He taught me a lot growing up. A lot of my game reflects on him. I think I’ve watched that (college brawl) with every new team I’ve come up with. Lots of fun.”
Josh, a tiger on the penalty kill, also has no trouble tangling with guys like Zadorov.
“I was taught at a young age never to back down. I was always the smallest kid in my grade and had to fight my own battles,” said the five-foot-10, 176-pounder. “I have a little fight in me and won’t back down, no matter how big they are.”
Zadorov is six-foot-six and 235 pounds.
CALGARY COACH, OILER TIES
Interim Flames coach Geoff Ward was head coach of the Oilers farm teams in Hamilton, Toronto and right here as the Edmonton Roadrunners during the 2004-05 lockout. Fernando Pisani played for him when they were the Hamilton Bulldogs, so did Kyle Brodziak when they were the Roadrunners. He coached Oilers farm teams for three years.
He’s been head coach in junior in Kitchener and Guelph and in Germany, but has never been an NHL head man (interim or not) until now, and he’s 57 years old. He worked with Claude Julien in Hamilton before Julien moved up to Montreal Canadiens the first time in 2002.
“I’ve watched him for a long time and I’m really surprised he hasn’t been a head coach,” said Dave King. “He did a really good job in Boston (as an assistant). The players liked him. He’s gone over to Germany and won (with Adler Mannheim in 2014-15). He helped out with the German national team and had a lot of influence in the style they played.”
This ’n’ that: Matt Benning (concussion) has been activated and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (hand) is going on injured reserve. No word on the status of Alex Chiasson …The Canucks, on the tail-end of a six-game road trip, give up lots of goals but 10 times they’ve scored at least five in a game … Canucks rookie D Quinn Hughes has three three-assist games already. One more and he ties the NHL record of Ray Bourque when he was a first-year NHLer with Boston in 1979-80. He’s got as many points as Brent Burns in San Jose, sixth in defenceman scoring, not just rookies … Canucks winger Antoine Roussel (knee) is on a conditioning assignment in Utica, their AHL farm team. They’ve missed his disruptive aspect … The Oilers farm squad in Bakersfield released AHL centre Steve Iacobellis so he can sign with a Finnish team.
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