Ottawa Senators Prospect Gets Sucker Punched, Touching Off OHL Brawl

Kitchener Rangers winger Luke Ellinas, a fourth-round draft pick of the Ottawa Senators, was on the business end of a fierce sucker punch in a game last Friday. The Rangers had just defeated the Erie Otters 3-1 at the Aud for their fifth straight victory.

After Kitchener eliminated the Otters in the first round of the OHL playoffs last season, the two teams don't much care for each other, and that was plainly obvious at the end of the game.

With both teams off the bench, milling around at center ice, Kitchener's Trent Swish and Erie's Pano Fimis, both top scorers for their teams, started slashing at each other. While nothing further came of that specific disagreement, it escalated emotions.

Ellinas got into shoving matches with a couple of different Otters players, and from the other side of the ice, Erie's Wesley Royston saw something he didn't like. The 17-year-old skated over and sucker-punched Ellinas while he was tied up with another player.

And then it was on.

When all the smoke had cleared, the Senators' draft pick wasn't injured on the play. Royston only got a pair of minors for roughing and faced no disciplinary action from the OHL.

Ellinas, who has 18 goals and 29 points in 38 games this season, is one of two Sens draft picks playing for Kitchener. Matthew Andonovski, a six-foot-two, 200-pound left-shot defenceman, was named Rangers' captain this season and signed his entry-level deal with the Senators back in July.