Last night, we experienced NHL Rivalry Night even if it was a day early. It was another round of the Battle of Pennsylvania and the match-up between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers had everything we expect. There were a lot of fights, many big hits, and a very dirty play by Zac Rinaldo. Whenever these two teams meet, they seem to bring out the best in each other and it’s always fun to watch. The Flyers won the game 3-2 last night in overtime, with a Claude Giroux goal making it six straight wins for the Flyers over the Penguins. Let’s take a look at a couple big moments that happened during last night’s game.
Zac Rinaldo at it again: Zac Rinaldo made a very stupid decision last night when he put a very dirty hit from behind on Kris Letang and even jumped off his skates while doing it. He’s most certainly going to get suspended for at least five games but I feel like it should be a whole lot more, perhaps in the range of 10-20 so that he can actually learn a lesson. After the game, he stated “I changed the whole game, man. Who knows what would’ve happened if I didn’t do what I did?” Rinaldo is basically saying that he really didn’t care about the way he hit and injured Letang. Hopefully the league sends a message to him during an in-person hearing after this disgusting hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7nr2UlQZxI
Fights, and more fights: Whenever these two teams meet, you know there’s going to be at least one fight if not two. Last night, there even more than that. Zach Sill and Michael Raffl dropped the gloves in the second period. The period itself took over an hour to play due to the total number of penalties. Steve Downie and Luke Schenn also dropped the gloves which resulted in more fighting majors. Steve Downie also imitated Max Talbot’s actions to the Philly crowd from a few ago when he told the crowd to be quiet. Only this time Downie waved to to the booing fans on Broad Street.
Jakub Vorachek also got into a fight, an extremely rare occurence which shows just how heated the game was. Rob Scuderi layed a very good hip check on him and when Vorachek got up, he went right to Scuderi and started to throw punches. Bobby Farnham, who was just called up for the game against the Flyers, got into a fight against Pierre-Edouard Bellemarre. Bellemarre got in a pretty nice punch that sent Farnham down. Farnham did fall on top of Bellemare. He could have easily punched Bellemarre when he was down but the young player showed some class and let up.
I’m sure the next time these two teams meet, someone on the Penguins will go after Rinaldo for the hit he put on Letang and I’m sure there will be a lot of fights again. Until next time, Philadelphia!
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