Ever wonder how a hockey fight evolves?

Allow Anthony Mantha to explain.

In Saturday’s 6-5 overtime loss at Philadelphia, Detroit Red Wings right winger Anthony Mantha took Flyers captain Claude Giroux into the boards from behind.

With the two teams slated to face each other again on Sunday in Detroit. Mantha anticipated retribution. He knew he’d be required to answer the bell, to pay the piper.

It didn’t take long for the call to arms to arrive.

Mantha and Philadelphia’s Wayne Simmonds dropped the mitts and tangled just 53 seconds into the game.

“Obviously I didn’t want to, I’ll be honest,” Mantha admitted. “But I step up for myself. The hit was kind of a weird hit. I knew I was gonna need to step up.

“I don’t know. It’s that, or they’re all over me the whole game.”

Before the game even started, Simmonds booked an appointment for a fist-to-fist meeting with Mantha.

“He told me right before the anthem he wanted me, so I said, ‘let’s get it over with,’ and play some hockey,” Mantha explained.

“He goes, ‘I hope you’re gonna be a man.’ That’s pretty much it. I said . . . What did I say? I said, ‘Am I gonna gain your respect?’ and he said, ‘Yeah.’ The next faceoff, first shift.”

Mantha held his own against the 6-2, 185-pond Simmonds, although you’d have to score the decision in Simmonds’ favor.

“Obviously he’s a tough customer,” Mantha said, who studied his opponent prior to the game, anticipating what was coming. “I did watch a couple of clips. He always switches to lefty, so I was trying to hold on to that left.”

Mantha broke his hand earlier this season in a fight, so he was conscious of that fact as he fought Simmonds, but there were no issues with it.

“The hand did come in mind,” Mantha said. “I guess the doctor did a great job.”

Mantha also didn’t believe that had more time passed between the rematch that the bad blood would have been forgotten and the two sides would have moved on. The game doesn’t work that way. Hockey players never forget.

“I think that brawl against Calgary (last season), what was it a year later when we played them and everyone knew about it, everyone was conscious of it,” Mantha said. “We knew it’s going to be a physical game and it was.”

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