Philadelphia Flyers: Watch Nate Thompson clobber Nate Bastian (video)

Did you happen to catch the Philadelphia Flyers‘ absolute shellacking of the Seattle Kraken?

If not, boy oh boy do you need to seek it out immediately, as the Orange and Black beat the absolute bricks off of former head coach Dave Hakstol‘s squad in the expansion franchise’s South Philly debut.

I mean, we’re talking a 6-1 beat down over the league’s second franchise named after a mythological creature where all six goals were scored by different players and seeming every player – real number? 11 – recorded at least one point.

Surely this was as dominant a game as you’ll see on the hallowed ice of the Wells Fargo Center, but do you want to know who took the brunt of the Seattle Kraken’s misery? Well, that’d be none other than bottom-six right-winger Nate Bastian, who took an absolute beating from Nate Thompson for an earlier shot on team captain Claude Giroux.

*Insert the “Call an ambulance! But not for me!” video here.*

Philadelphia Flyers fans have to love Nate Thompson’s early-season fire.

In the second period of the Philadelphia Flyers’ eventual win over the Seattle Kraken, ex-New Jersey Devils expansion draftee Nate Bastain did what big, bottom-six power forwards like to do and tried to mix it up with his opponent’s best player, Claude Giroux.

On paper, this is a sound strategy. Bastain isn’t a particularly impactful player, and if he can get Giroux off the ice due to a double technical, it provides the Kraken with a statistical advantage.

But when you mess with the captain, you’d better expect retaliation at some point later in the outing, even if it gets him in the box for two minutes.

Bastain learned that lesson the hard way, as even though his team gradually watched their chances of winning disappear with each passing goal, his misdeed came back to haunt him in the form of 37-year-old journeyman forward Nate Thomspon, who took things personally, to paraphrase the great one, Michael Jordan.

See what I mean? Call Thompson the Thing, because it’s “clobbering time!”

Even with a five-goal lead, it was incredibly exciting to see Thompson step up for his teammate and drop the wood on a 23-year-old former second-round pick with 50 games of NHL experience and counting on his resume.

Remember the golden rule, Nate; don’t start a fight you can’t finish.

When the Philadelphia Flyers opted to re-sign Nate Thomspon to a one-year, $800,000 contract over the summer, it left many a fan ever so slightly confused. Sure, Thomspon is a hitter with experience playing in the City of Brotherly Love, but did anyone really expect him to be able to replace Nolan Patrick in the bottom-six, especially with Morgan Frost waiting in the wings? Well, as it turns out, the addition of Anchorage, Alaska’s best was just what the doctor ordered to bring some brute force to the Flyers’ lineup, especially with Sam Morin out indefinitely.