Bad blood: Ladd, Kesler go at it again

It didn't take long for Andrew Ladd and Ryan Kesler to get reacquainted.

Just 37 seconds into Friday's game at the United Center, Ladd and Kesler earned rouging penalties for a scrap in the corner.

It was after the two players fought on Jan. 23, at GM Place that Kesler called Ladd a coward. Kesler was still angry from the hit he took from Ladd in the playoffs that left him with a broken nose.

"I'm not really worried about him," Ladd said before the game.

Kesler got annoyed after the morning skate when reporters questioned him about what he expected from Ladd.

"Not much out of the ordinary," Kesler said. "I don't think he's going to take it any farther, that's just the player he is."

The kind of player he is?

"I'm not calling him a coward either. You guys like to twist my words a lot," Kesler said.

But Kesler did call Ladd a coward.

"Yeah, I did, but right there I didn't just call him that," Kesler said. "He's a hard-nosed player that plays the same every night. I'm not calling him a coward. The media always turns people's words around. It drives me nuts.

"He broke my nose (in the playoffs), but that's done. He fought me (in January) and what's done is done."

Patrick Kane got to know Kesler during the Olympics as teammates on the U.S. team and said his opinion of the Canucks' center changed - at least for those two weeks.

"He's a good guy," Kane said. "All hockey guys are like that off the ice. It seems like we all get along off the ice, but on the ice it's just another rivalry and a different story.

"I'm sure it will be the same way playing against him as it was before. That's the way you play hockey," Kane said. "Me and (Jonathan) Toews were chirping at each other on the ice when we played Canada. I sat next to (Kesler) in the locker room. I know him a bit now and he seems like an all right guy. At the same time we're enemies now, we're on different teams and I probably don't have to see him now for another four years."

Kesler admitted he gained more respect for Kane as Olympic teammates.

"I think I respect him a lot more than I did," Kesler said. "He's a great player and you don't understand how good a player he is until you play with him."