Joel Armia crushes David Pastrnak with a monstrous hit.

That is certainly one way to make sure a rivalry is still alive and well.

On Sunday night the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins faced off for the second time this week. The first match up earlier in the week saw the Habs absolutely obliterated at the hands of the Bruins with the boys from Boston embarrassing the Canadiens in front of their home crowd at the Bell Center by a score of 8 - 1. As a result of that loss fans expected a much more spirited effort out of the Montreal Canadiens and, although the Habs would lose once again, they definitely put on a much better effort in this outing. 

In terms of physicality alone the Canadiens were challenging the Bruins in this contest and at some points in the game it even looked like some of the old Bruins and Canadiens rivalry was starting to come out on both ends of the ice. At one point a stoppage in play led to a short lived brawl at center ice, one that you can see in the short clip provided just below.

The highlight of the night in terms of physical play came when Montreal Canadiens forward Joel Armia decided he was going to absolutely flatten the National Hockey League's leading scorer, David Pastrnak. Pastrnak has been on an incredible tear this season and in fact he would record his 25th goal of the season later in the game, becoming the fastest player to hit that mark during a regular season since National Hockey League legend Jaromir Jagr did it all the way back during the 1996 - 1997 regular season, over two decades ago. Naturally that would place a rather large target on his back and in a rivalry like this that target was likely only amplified.

Armia saw his chance late in the second period when Pastrnak was attempting to move the puck up the ice and boy did he ever make it count. Armia caught Pastrnak on the back of his shoulder and hit him so hard it sent his helmet flying down to the ice, several feet away from where Pastrnak fell to the ice. To his credit the Bruins star forward would remain in the game however, although something tells me Armia may now have a target on his back when these two teams cross paths once again.