Trouba showed up for Celebrini, and Brady still won the fight

Look, Jacob Trouba has been a Shark for about five minutes, and he already did the one thing every young captain wants from his old defenseman. He went straight at Brady Tkachuk. That's not a fight. That's a membership card.

Here's the setup. Macklin Celebrini, in his first game wearing the C, bumped Aleksander Barkov off his feet near center ice. Brady chased Celebrini down and put him on the ice from behind along the boards. No whistle. Trouba skated over, the gloves came off at 7:40 of the first, and both guys got five.

Fight of the week: Tkachuk vs. Trouba. Who asked: Trouba, and he didn't fill out the form. Who answered: Brady, instantly, because Brady has never turned down an invitation in his life, including the ones that weren't addressed to him.

Who won: Brady, by a little. It was a real one, not a hug-and-tug, which is more than you can say for most September tilts. Grade: B-plus for Trouba for showing up, A-minus for Brady for the result.

Now the hit. I've watched enough Bruins hockey to know what a no-call looks like when it's your guy. This was a no-call when it was everybody's guy.

A captain gets dropped from behind in his first game with the letter, and the stripes looked at it like a parking ticket nobody wanted the paperwork on. Grade on the officials: D.

And here's the part San Jose will be telling people about for years. Celebrini got up and finished with three assists, including the one on Luca Cagnoni's overtime winner. Trouba's right hand was nice. The scoresheet was nicer.

There was a second tilt, too. Uvis Balinskis hit Ivar Stenberg, Collin Graf came over to answer for it, and Graf lost his footing before the thing really got going. One Sharks fight went the distance and one went straight to the ice. Call it a split card.

Kept off the sheet: Brady Tkachuk. Two games, just over 36 minutes, zero points, nine hits and seven penalty minutes, by our count.

Buddy, I'm begging you. Florida didn't get you off a list for the hits. They had hits. They have a whole roster of guys who'd fight a Zamboni. They wanted the goals.

Yes, it's two games. He played 19:37 Thursday, up three minutes from opening night per NHL data, so Maurice likes something he's seeing. I'm still writing it down.

Bruins tax: In Boston, a new guy fights a Tkachuk on night one and there's a sandwich named after him by Saturday. In San Jose, they won in overtime and nobody even asked about the sandwich.

Not a real award: The Fire Alarm Trophy for Fastest Response Time goes to Jacob Trouba, who covered the distance from wherever he was to Brady Tkachuk in less time than it took the linesmen to notice.

Florida scored twice in 17 seconds in the third to tie it, so the Panthers get a participation ribbon for speed.

These two don't see each other again until Feb. 21 in Sunrise. Brady will remember. Trouba will remember. The officials will be stunned to learn it happened. I said what I said.