Welcome to our top 10 Vancouver Canucks fights of all time. With our friends from HockeyFights.com and managing editor David Quadrelli, our Honourable Mention is the fight between Rick Rypien and Hal Gill.
Earlier in the summer, we covered our top 5 Vancouver Canucks fights of the 2024-2025 season. You can rewatch all of these fights here:
#5 – Dakota Joshua vs. Brady Tkachuk
#4 – JT Miller vs. Anthony Mantha
#3 – Dakota Joshua vs. Michael McCarron
#2 – Elias Pettersson vs. Logan O’Connor
#1 – Conor Garland vs. Erik Haula
We will kick off our regularly scheduled Top 10 Canucks fights of all time tomorrow; however, Quadrelli insisted we remind you all of the fearless effort from Rick Rypien, where he dropped the gloves with a player nearly a foot taller than he is.
On October 7, 2009, the Canucks welcomed the Montreal Canadiens to General Motors Place. After starting the season 0-3, Vancouver was still searching for their first win of the season, and they were determined to walk away with their first victory on that night.
After 13 scoreless minutes, the Canucks exploded with a trio of goals from Ryan Kesler, Mason Raymond and Steve Bernier. Andrei Kostitsyn got the Canadiens on the board early in the second period, but a pair of Henrik Sedin goals gave the Canucks a 5-1 lead heading into the final break.
Clearly frustrated by the blowout, the Canadiens weren’t backing down from anything – especially 6’7″ defenceman Hal Gill.
Just over seven minutes into the third period, Rypien chases the puck down in the offensive zone. Gill gets there first and makes a routine pass along the boards, as Rypien rubs against him behind the net. They don’t appear on the screen, but the play is quickly blown dead as the two had dropped the gloves.
The two exchanged early blows, but Rypien was at a clear disadvantage due to the height difference. Then, Rypien got crafty. He grabbed Gill’s jersey between the elbow and shoulder to restrict his left arm. With a free left hand, Rypien had his hand up next to his face, a move you typically see from professional fighters, not in hockey fights.
Despite the defensive positioning, Rypien continued offensively, throwing some upward jabs at Gill. In fact, Gill was so much taller than Rypien that some of his punches were going over Rypien’s head.
The two get tied up for a little bit, which leaves Rypien bent over and in an unfortunate position. However, Rypien was comfortable with either hand and started throwing some right jabs to the body, then switched back and caught Gill with some left hands to the face.
Rypien continues switching hands until the referees inevitably step in and separate the two.
What’s most impressive from Rypien’s efforts is his fearlessness to take on one of the biggest and toughest defencemen in the game. The 5’11” enforcer’s ability to stay in the fight by switching hands certainly earned him the victory.
HockeyFights voters gave this fight a 6.1/10 and heavily sided with Rypien, earning 73% of the 283 votes. Gill received just 8%, while 19% of voters believed the fight was a draw.
What would you rank this fight out of 10, Canucks fans?
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