Posted on 04/16/2012 8:11:01 AM PDT by RitchieAprile
PHILADELPHIA -- Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby summed up the feelings between his team and the Philadelphia Flyers pretty succinctly after Game 3 of the teams' Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series.
"I don't like any guy on their team there," he said.
The feeling appears to be mutual, as Sunday's game featured three fights, three game misconducts, four 10-minute misconducts and a match penalty among the 38 penalties totaling 158 minutes. When it was finished, the Flyers had a 8-4 victory and a three-games-to-none stranglehold in the series, which continues Wednesday night.
The physical play started early. Just 2:39 into the game, Pittsburgh defenseman Deryk Engelland and Philadelphia forward Zac Rinaldo were sent off for pushing and shoving in the Penguins' end.
That was only the tip of the fuse that led to a very large powder keg.
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At 12:02 of the period, Crosby took two whacks at Ilya Bryzgalov's glove after the goalie trapped the puck on the ice. Claude Giroux took exception and the pair went visor-to-visor behind the net, and then carried the conversation out near the faceoff circle.
Things seemed to calm down at that point, but as Crosby skated away, he took a swipe at Jakub Voracek's discarded glove as the Flyers forward bent over to reclaim it. That upset Philadelphia defenseman Kimmo Timonen who confronted Crosby and slashed the stick out of his hands. That led to pushing and shoving, with Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang grabbing Timonen from behind and pulling him away while Giroux jumped back into the fray with Crosby -- and both players shed their gloves.
While the officials were trying to break up the superstar-on-superstar fight, Letang and Timonen engaged in a scrap that saw Timonen have his jersey pulled over his head.
After referees restored order, Timonen and Letang each were handed game misconducts, as well as fighting majors. Timonen also was given an additional slashing penalty. Giroux and Crosby also received fighting majors, and Voracek and the Pens' Steve Sullivan received matching roughing minors.
The ejections of Letang and Timonen -- the top defenseman on each team -- were based on them starting a fight after a fight already was in process.
"I didn't like that tradeoff very much," said Flyers forward Danny Briere. "I know Letang is a very good defenseman, offensively he's their most dangerous defenseman. But Kimmo does it all for us, defensively, offensively, everywhere. I didn't really like that tradeoff."
What they did like, though, was the sight of Giroux, their top offensive threat, going toe-to-toe with CrosBy, the Penguins' go-to superstar.
"I thought it was great," said Flyers coach Peter Laviolette. "That's the thing … in the end, that's playoff hockey, isn't it? A couple of the best players in the world dropping their gloves and going at it. Would I rather have [Giroux] keep his gloves on? Sure. But when he's fighting Sidney Crosby, that's playoff hockey."
Crosby also said he wasn't going to back down one iota.
"Guys are emotional and there is a lot of stuff going on out there," he said. "There is no reason to explain."
Arron Asham
Right Wing - PIT
GOALS: 0 | ASST: 0 | PTS: 0 SOG: 1 | +/-: -3 Things seemed to get even crazier later in the first when the Flyers' Brayden Schenn was called for charging for a hit on Pittsburgh's Paul Martin. Pittsburgh's Arron Asham responded by cross-checking Schenn in the face and then punching the Flyers rookie in the head while Schenn was down on the ice. Asham was handed a match penalty.
According to the NHL Rulebook (Rule 21.2), in addition to the match penalty Asham is automatically suspended until a hearing is conducted with the Department of Player Safety.
The first period ended with 72 penalty minutes and took nearly an hour to play.
Things were far calmer in the second period, but started again in the third after a booming hit by the Pens' James Neal on Flyers rookie Sean Couturier. No penalty was called on Neal on the Couturier hit, but after he tried to throw a big hit on Giroux, another melee broke out with 4:42 remaining in the game.
Neal was called for charging and given a game misconduct. Scott Hartnell and Crosby got paired off, but before that could start, Pittsburgh's Craig Adams pulled Hartnell away and squared off with him. The end result was another 64 minutes in penalties, with Adams, Engelland and the Flyers' Wayne Simmonds earning misconduct penalties.
With two days off, there's a chance some of the anger could cool off before the puck drops for Game 4 on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, TSN) at Wells Fargo Center.
But it likely won't take much time for things to start boiling again.
"Doesn't take a lot to get fired up for these games," said Hartnell.
Refs really lost control of this game..
That game was awesome! I’m a Flyers fan though.
P.S. Crosby is a b**ch!
Am surprised the Pens are collapsing so badly. Fleury isn’t playing well, but his defense also seems to be pretty loose as well. Bryzgolov isn’t anything to write home about either.
Next round i want to see Bruins and Flyers. Bruins are tougher than Pens, and have a better goalie. More fireworks in store!
The Pens are certainly one dirty team.
I never watch hockey, but yesterday I was flipping through the channels and saw this big pileup, so I stopped to watch. Was this the game where it looked like one guy came up behind the other and pulled his hair? And then they started swinging at each other? The guy with the long hair was missing like his entire set of front upper teeth.
that was Scott Hartnell with the hair.
Crosby still being a cheap shot little beeotch I see.
Most NHL Playoff games are worth watching, yesterday’s game was EPIC...
Sometimes, you get two teams that REALLY don't like each other. You know going in, that you're gonna clamp down on them. But usually all it takes is one good clean hit...then no call (because it was clean) and the recipient's team goes hunting for retribution.
And then it's ON.
Not much else they could do.
Refs can only keep control if the teams will let them. If the teams are intent on fighting the refs can mostly stand back, take sweater numbers, and try to keep the carnage down a bit.
I would argue that the Neal nit on Coutourier was beyond late, the puck was nowhere near him.
Most if not all the subsequent extracurriculars resulted
from Neal continuing to skate (and head hunt Giroux).
Let's GO Flyers!
LOL. That's what my 8 year old little cousin calls him. Cindy Crybaby Crosby.
I'm still mad from when Gary Bettman and the officials had a conspiracy against us in 09. Go Wings, and I hope the Flyers take out Crosby's team from the playoffs so Bettman can cry in his beer.
That's a very perceptive 8 year old!
Neal’s hearing is tomorrow for the Coutourier and Giroux hits. I’m thinking his season will be over after his meeting with Mr Shanahan.
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