For once, Don Cherry is on the Capitals' side.

The sportscaster defended Alex Ovechkin's decision to agree to a fight 19-year-old Hurricanes rookie, Andrei Svechnikov, which resulted in Svechnikov missing most of Game 3 and Game 4.

“When you stick a guy, and you go after a guy, you better be prepared,” Cherry said in his Coach's Corner segment on Sportsnet.

Co-host, Ron MacLean disagreed. “I say he shouldn’t have picked on a kid."

"He never picked on a kid!" Cherry exclaimed.

Hurricanes fans were outraged by the fight and the team's head coach, Rod Brind'Amour, disputed that Svechnikov started the fight.

"I don’t know if there’s words exchanged, but one guy’s gloves comes off way first and that’s Ovi’s, it’s not our guy’s," Brind'Amour told reporters on Monday.

“That guy was looking for trouble," Cherry argued. “You play with the bull, you get the horns.”

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