The Penguins are Now in the Flyers Heads

Earlier in the season the Penguins lost six games in a row.  All the talk around Pittsburgh was about how the Penguins wouldn’t  make the playoffs and who should be traded. After losing the six in a row the Penguins went and won eight games in a row. Going into last game the Penguins had lost six playoff games in a row.  The Flyers got blown out on Wednesday and are beginning to question themselves.

The Flyers tried everything in their trick bag to get the Penguins to retaliate on Wednesday night.  The Flyers resorted to constant face washings, dives, cross checks and when they didn’t work they  just flat out punched the Penguins in the face.  The Penguins to a player, even Matt Cooke who Hartnell said earlier in the season was the dirtiest player in hockey, took it and walked away.

If you can explain to me why Asham without a prior history got suspended for four games for hitting a guy while he was down and Rinaldo who has a history does the same thing to a concussion prone player got nothing I will hand out a gold star. Rinaldo even said after the game that Michalek had done nothing to him earlier.  My best guess would be the Penguins put a call in to Shannahan and pleaded with him not to suspend Rinaldo.

“The Penguins learned very quickly” said Jaromir Jagr.  The referees learn quickly also.  If you make the referees look bad by diving all game they will get upset.  They refs showed the Flyers how upset they were the rest of the game.

The beauty of the Flyers and there fans is one little seed of doubt or one little tidbit of adversity and they sell each other out.  Have you ever seen an emptier arena after the second period of a home team that is up 3-0 in a series?  It begins with the GM and works its way on down.  The Flyers GM says Grossman has an upper body injury when everyone saw him hobbling off on his knee.  If you disrespect the intelligence of your fans, they’re going to disrespect you right back.

Briere sold out the coaches “We had a bad day yesterday and we didn’t come prepared“.  Hartnell blamed the players “I think we weren’t moving our feet” ,  They are blaming everyone and not putting responsibility on themselves as individuals. You want to see a locker room fall apart fast.

The Flyers goaltender Bryzgalov basically sold out his defense saying “We gave them the chances”.  When Bryzgalov himself couldn’t stop a beach ball.  All the sudden now they are saying Bryzgalov’s injured?  When he was pulled from the game the only thing that was injured was his pride. They also recalled a minor league goaltender.  Is Bryzgalov being yanked because of his comments about the Flyers defense? Are they playing mind games with their prize goaltender?

The Penguins are in their heads folks, Lets Go Pens.