NHL Red Wings

While the NHL still tries to figure out a way to handle hits to the head, they are also trying to curb other dangerous hits plaguing the game.

Saturday night, we saw this kind of hit in Montreal. Georges Laraque took out the knee of Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall. Despite pleading innocence and claiming it was an accident, Laraque was suspended five games on Monday.

Every Friday, FanHouse sifts through the rubble and picks the best NHL fight, with the help of HockeyFights.com.

Sometimes, we scour the internet looking for the best fight, only to be left underwhelmed. There are other weeks where this job couldn't possibly be any easier. The good fights jump at you, and the players involved are the guys you would expect to see in the big fights. This week's winning fight has some blood in it, so use caution as you proceed.

The Detroit Red Wings lost to the Dallas Stars, 3-1, on Wednesday night, and it's possible that the game could have had a far different outcome had the referees not taken a goal away from Brad May at the 6:40 mark of the third period.

I'm not one to blame officials for teams losing games, but every once in a while the men in stripes make a call that defies all reason and logic, and this is one of those moments.

Video after the jump.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- You park your car, walk in the side door of the Hoffman Estates Community Center in suburban Chicago, and the first thing you see is some gray-haired, slightly hunched guy standing under a sign that says, "Senior Center. 50+ club."

Chris Chelios is not aging well.

What? Oh, wait, that wasn't Chelios. Chelios was around the corner, a mere 47 years old, still 26 months from 50+ eligibility, not playing checkers, but instead playing in a hockey scrimmage with the Chicago Wolves minor league hockey team.

Brendan Shanahan announced his retirement on Tuesday afternoon, ending a 21-year career that saw him finish with 656 goals (11th all time), 698 assists and 1,354 points with the New Jersey Devils, Hartford Whalers, St. Louis Blues, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils.

He was a member of three Stanley Cup winning teams (all in Detroit), an eight-time All-Star and a two-time 50-goal scorer.

Not only was he a dominating player on the ice, he was also an extremely entertaining person off of it.

Every Friday, FanHouse sifts through the rubble and picks the best NHL fight, with the help of HockeyFights.com.

If last week seemed a little bit light, we're going to make up for it now. There is no shortage of fights to choose from this week, and we had some really good ones that had to be left on the proverbial cutting room floor. We've also added to our series of rather unlikely scraps. To top it all off, we had an easy choice for the week's best bout.

In September, former NBA superstar Michael Jordan raised more than a few eyebrows. The speech he gave at his Hall of Fame induction quickly turned into a vengeful gong show in which His Airness blasted virtually anyone who he even perceived to be guilty of a slight.

Monday night, the Hockey Hall of Fame welcomed its class of 2009. The ceremony's very first acceptance speech was given by former St. Louis Blue, Dallas Star, and Detroit Red Wing Brett Hull. It was a stirring example of how to give a Hall of Fame speech.

In 1984, a kid with a famous name and loads of potential in his game showed up on the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth. The Calgary Flames had drafted the kid, but they knew he wasn't ready to play.

After two years at UMD, Brett Hull -- son of the great Bobby Hull -- was ready to tear up the NHL. Boy, did he ever do that.

Turns out Hull was quite the impact player at every level he ever played at. He finished his career as the only player to ever score 50 goals in college hockey, the minors, and the NHL.

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In an age of look-at-me professional athletes, full of boasting, silly taunting and big celebrations over routine plays, Steve Yzerman is a reminder that the best and most talented shine all the brighter for humble behavior.

The longtime Red Wings captain, and a three-time Stanley Cup winner as a player, enters the Hall of Fame as a winner on the ice and off, a gentleman respected by his peers and adored by his fans.

Yzerman was, and is, classy and understated, the embodiment of old-fashioned values of sportsmanship and personal accountability.

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It doesn't matter how good your team's front office is, the NHL draft can still be a complete shot in the dark in which the most highly-touted, can't miss prospect can miss, and ninth-round picks that sneak under the radar because of concerns about their ability to skate at an NHL level can end up scoring over 600 goals and tallying nearly 1,400 points in a 19-year career -- kind of like Luc Robitaille.

Robitaille was passed over 170 times during the 1984 NHL Entry Draft (a class that featured Mario Lemieux going No. 1 overall, and fellow 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee Brett Hull being taken at No. 117) before being selected in the ninth round by the Los Angeles Kings.

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