WATCH: Brandon Carlo (!) drops gloves with Sharks’ Timo Meier in return

Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo wasted little time getting his hands dirty in his return to the Bruins’ lineup.

Carlo’s game has never been based around physicality or snarl, but he’s been known to get ornery from time to time. It appears that Sharks forward Timo Meier pushed enough of the right buttons early in the game against the Bruins on Sunday at TD Garden to get Carlo to say eff it and drop the gloves.

You can watch the fight in the clips below. (Whoever put the above highlights package together must be anti-violence in hockey.)

• Timo Meier and Brandon Carlo drop the gloves just 27 seconds into the game. pic.twitter.com/gHKbBK9wKc

  — Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) January 23, 2023

• The people have spoken over at HockeyFights.com: 75 percent picked Meier as the winner, as he did score the takedown on the much larger Carlo (6.3 percent of votes). Fans also voted 18.8 percent “draw.” But of course, fighters should be respected just for stepping into the ring in the first place, rather than the end results. And Meier’s victory in the fight obviously had no impact whatsoever on the Bruins’ ability to win the actual game.

  Incredibly, the Carlo-Meier fight took place on the one-year anniversary of Carlo’s last bout, when he went at it with the Jets’ Austin Poganski. Carlo got the W in that one.

  The fight against Meier was only the sixth of Carlo’s NHL career. Like I said, he’s just not a fighter. The knock on him has always been that he could stand to use his size to his advantage more than he does. So it’s always a welcome sight to see Carlo get a little nasty.

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• Carlo had to leave last Thursday’s win over the New York Rangers early with a lower body injury. He told reporters Sunday that the injury felt similar to when he broke his ankle and he may have hit a nerve, but fortunately the x-rays came back negative and he was able to get right back in the lineup.

  It was a highlight-packed night for the Bruins defense, who got some eye-popping goals from Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy, in addition to the fight. They now get a day off from hockey activity Monday, then they’ll travel to Montreal ahead of a game against the Canadiens at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night. Amazingly, that’s the first Bruins-Habs matchup of the season, 47 games in.

  Montreal marks the start of a five-game Eastern Conference road trip for the B’s, marked by tough opponents that they very well could see in the playoffs. They head to Tampa to square off with the Lightning on Thursday, then they visit the Panthers on Saturday, Hurricanes on Sunday, and Maple Leafs the following Wednesday, Feb. 1. We’ll have you covered every step of the way here at 985TheSportsHub.com, and you can always get plenty of Bruins talk on the Sports Hub Underground podcast.

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  Matt Dolloff is a writer and podcaster for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Matt? Yell at him on Twitter @mattdolloff and follow him on Instagram @realmattdolloff. Check out all of Matt’s content here.