Gameday Poop: Penguins vs. Flyers – Game 2

Dan Bylsma has always said that the Penguins have two of the worlds best players and that they need to be the ones dictating the pace of the game not the other team. He took that to a whole new level on Wednesday when he scratched the Penguins healthy enforcer Eric Godard. Scratching your enforcer against the Flyers is unheard of, the papers will be writing that Bylsma is one taco short of a combo platter, or will they? It turned out to be pure Genius.

The Philadelphia papers are saying Mike Richards looked worn down and are blaming the Flyers coach John Stevens of over playing Richards to the tune of 6 minutes more ice time than Crosby or Malkin. Richards was blaming his tiredness on killing idiot penalties by Hartnell.

I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. The NHL has fined Flyer coach John Stevens $10,000 and suspended Daniel Carcillo for one game because of the head shot Carcillo gave to Maxime Talbot at the end of Wednesday’s game. “We had a conference call Monday with the General Managers and Coaches of playoff teams and told them explicitly we would not tolerate attempts by clubs to ‘send a message’ late in a game when the outcome had been determined,” said Colin Campbell the Director of Hockey Operations for the NHL.

Kimmo Timonen missed practice yesterday and is still recovering from the hit the Kunitz placed on him. He is expected to be in the lineup tonight. Coach Stevens also added Darrol Powe to the lineup to counter the Penguins speed and benched Arrom Asham.

Gary Bettman said on Wednesday that “the Pittsburgh franchise is a model for other franchises”. I wonder what he was thinking about the Philadelphia franchise after Wednesday’s game.

Speaking of model franchises, what the heck is going on in Detroit? I heard that if it wasn’t for the thousand some Columbus fans making the trip to Motown, that they wouldn’t have sold out Joe Lewis. I guess the auto industry layoffs are taking there toll on the Wings. I wonder what the fans think of Franzen’s new 43.5 million dollar contract.

The Islanders won the NHL “John Tavares Lottery” which could be a big boost to the NHL having such a big name in a big city. I imagine you will see a lot of switched alliances among New Yorkers. By the way, when is the last time that a big name player coming out of the draft went to a Western Team? Crosby, Ovechkin, Thornton, Lecavier, Lindros, Lemieux were all hyped as the next ones all went Eastern.

I counted seven blatant penalties that the refs missed, including the high stick to Cookes face, Hartnell’s slash of Gill, and Knubles slash of Staal after Staal checked him. Did the NHL tell the refs to keep the score close because it was such a big nationally televised game or did the refs just miss the calls?

The WBS Penguins open up defense of their Calder Cup Championship tonight against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

Penguin prospect Philadelphia native Eric Tangradi was named OHL player of the week, he had 4 goals and 3 assists in two games. Who is he rooting for tonight?

Gametime is 7PM and can be seen in high definition at the Igloo or on FSN.