***update: 1:45pm
According to Paul Holmgren, Briere is "out indefinitely with upper back contusion", Grossmann out "7-10 days with lower- body injury" (team will not confirm it's the knee). Both supposed to be back for the playoffs.
Two weeks ago, I thought it was going to be tough for any regular season hockey game to top the emotional stakes and entertainment of the Flyers' 3-2 comeback win over the Penguins in the final second of overtime. Yesterday's clash in Pittsburgh was not as well played of a game from a strictly technical standpoint but it was arguably even more exciting and emotional than the last one.
The Flyers' 6-4 win doesn't really mean much in the standings except that the Flyers need one more point than Pittsburgh over the final three games (including next week's return match) to gain home ice over the Pens in the teams' impending Eastern Conference Quarterfinal clash. If the two teams tie in points at the end of the regular season, Philly will get the fourth seed via tiebreaker for more regulation and overtime victories. But home ice probably won't mean much in the series, as either club is capable of defeating the other regardless of venue.
The bigger significance of yesterday's game was that it demonstrated yet again just how resilient this year's Flyers team truly is. This is a club that knows how to overcome all sorts of adversity, whether it's trailing in a game or dealing with injuries. They may not win, but they'll give it one hell of a fight if they don't. It should also be said that the Penguins are also a resilient team as well as a talented one.
It was not much of a surprise that the Flyers fell behind 2-0 early in the game because a) they do it habitually, b) they have hemorrhaged first-period goals against in afternoon games all season and c) the Penguins have scored first in four of the five games in the season series, including multi-goal leads in three of them before Philly got on the board.
Likewise, it was no surprise that the Flyers battled back to the tie the game 2-2 by early in the second period because a) although it's far from ideal, they often seem to play their best hockey while pursuing comebacks, b) the Penguins were yielding more operating space to the Flyers than they did two weeks ago, and the Flyers were doing a better job of forcing the issue than they did in the first two periods last time, and c) the Flyers have erased deficits in all the games where the Pens scored first and have won three of these four games (the other Flyers victory was one where they built up a 3-0 lead and then held on for a 3-2 victory).
Getting a goal back by the end of the first period was huge for the Flyers. After not figuring in the scoring of any of the Flyers' previous 16 goals, Claude Giroux's shot from high in zone got through a screen in front and trickled over the goal line. Then Max Talbot -- who incredibly now has one more goal on the season than Jaromir Jagr -- tied it up early in the second period and it was a brand new game.
To be honest, however, I did not see the bonanza of Flyers' goals in the third period coming at all. After two periods, especially with Pittsburgh holding a carryover power play, I thought everything was lined up either for a Penguins' win in regulation or else a dreaded three-point game. Although both clubs were playing for the third time in four days, it was the Flyers who had played a shootout game the previous afternoon while the Pens had the day off. So I feared the Flyers would be the worn-down team in the third.
Instead, the Flyers came out with as much third-period ferocity as they've shown all year. It was the Penguins who cracked first.
Starting with Wayne Simmonds' power play goal from the doorstep (the streaky winger's fifth goal in the last three games), continuing through Jakub Voracek taking the feed from Eric Wellwood to go in and finish the play on the backhand against Marc-Andre Fleury and concluding with Marc-Andre Bourdon's goal to make it a 5-2 score, Pittsburgh didn't know what hit them and couldn't stop the bleeding.
The Pens' two late goals sandwiched around Voracek's empty net goal did nothing but alter the final score. The outcome was already sealed.
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The raw emotion of yesterday's game, with numerous cheapshots both ways led to the already much-replayed explosion with 1:03 left in the game.
Joe Vitale made a retaliatory open ice hit (shoulder-to-shoulder but finished off a bit high) on Danny Briere. The hit was clearly in retaliation for Brayden Schenn's crosscheck to the back of Sidney Crosby after Steve Sullivan's goal with 1:03 left in the game. At that point, all hell broke loose on the ice and on the benches.
Simmonds, one day after taking a puck to the face and needing 7 stitches to close a wound under his right eyebrow to the bridge of his nose, fought Deryk Engeland. "Simmer" doesn't lose many fights but Engelland won this one with a late flurry of punches that landed.
Even more dramatic was the shouting match at the benches between Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette (with assistant Craig Berube half-heartedly restraining him) and Penguins' assistant Tony Granato. Laviolette was so incensed by the personnel that Dan Bylsma had sent out on the ice -- ostensibly for purposes of going after a small player such as Briere -- that the Philadelphia coach broke one of Maxime Talbot's sticks, causing a piece to fly into the Penguins' bench. Laviolette then tossed the remainder on the ice.
I didn't have a huge problem with Vitale running at Briere, even though it was gratuitous. Danny needs to protect himself there, and it was not a surprise after the Schenn crosscheck to Crosby that something further would develop before the end of the game. Thankfully, Briere was uninjured. He's been taking more big hits this season than I ever remember him receiving in the past, however.
I had a much, much bigger issue with Vitale even being in the game at that point. Back in the first period, he ripped a page out of the Bryan Marchment handbook in the way he recklessly -- I won't say deliberately, because it's hard to judge intent -- stuck out his leg to initiate knee-to-knee contact with Flyers' shutdown defenseman Nicklas Grossmann.
Grossmann was knocked out of the game, which seemed to be an awfully fortuitous break for the Penguins given the way he and Braydon Coburn had basically shut down Evgeni Malkin line two weeks earlier. The Flyers have declared Grossmann to be day-to-day. We'll see. He has a past history of knee problems, and already wears a heavy brace. Last season, a sprained MCL forced Grossmann to miss the rest of the season. Hopefully, this time around, it really is a day-to-day injury such as a charley horse rather than a reinjury of his knee.
Even without Grossmann, his partner, Coburn, had a plus-four day with an assist on the first of Voracek's goals in the final period. Moving forward, the Flyers need Grossmann in the lineup, however. He has been a rock of strength on the blueline, and has fared well of late against an array of the most dangerous forwards in the Eastern Conference.
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