PHILADELPHIA -- If the Philadelphia Flyers go on to sweep Pittsburgh on Saturday -- and at this rate, there's every reason to believe that they'll do just that, as they continued their domination of the Penguins with a 5-2 win in Game 3 on Wednesday -- the series almost certainly has its iconic moment already.
Unsurprisingly, it began with agitator extraordinaire Travis Konecny drawing an opponent's ire.
At 4:33 of the second period, Konecny went a little too hard to the blue paint for Bryan Rust's liking. Rust, with a little more aggression than necessary, jumped on top of Konecny, ripped his helmet off and shoved Konecny's head into the back of the goal cage. A full 10-man scrum ensued, while a kicking and screaming Konecny eventually got back on his skates and challenged Rust to a fight that Rust declined.
After a lengthy delay, referees Jake Brenk and Francois St. Laurent figured they might as well take every player off the ice. Everyone got two minutes for roughing -- except for Rust, who was given a double-minor.
Trevor Zegras' power-play goal 45 seconds later tied the game at one, seizing momentum for the Flyers that they would ride the rest of the way. The celebration of Zegras making a beeline to the penalty box and banging on the glass to salute his five teammates that were serving their time was one of those sequences that won't be easily forgotten in the first home playoff game in front of fans in Philadelphia in eight years.
"It was funny," Konecny said, "because (Christian Dvorak) had mentioned right before, imagine the celebration if we score one here. Ziggy must have heard him somehow and came flying over to the box. It was pretty cool."
Why did Zegras go to the box, rather than the bench, as is standard?
"I don't know. There was a lot of them in there," he said. "I figured they were going to be jumping around. I thought if I scored, I was going right to them, for sure."
Said Garnet Hathaway: "I think you'll be seeing that meme of the guys celly in the box together for a long time."
For his part, Konecny didn't much want to get into why he thought Rust was so irate, although a subtle elbow to Rust's face as they were battling may have been why.
"There's tons of things going on," Konecny said. "We weren't really exchanging too many words."
Sitting directly to Konecny's left, Zegras couldn't hold a smirk and slight chuckle that said otherwise -- as did the television cameras, which were focused on a wild-haired Konecny screaming at Rust, seemingly for not having the gall to square up.
At the conclusion of the period, and after the Flyers had padded their lead to 3-1, Konecny hovered around center ice a little while rather than go immediately up the tunnel. He was chirping at any Penguins players he could see, including Kris Letang, who was closest and glided over to utter a few words himself in Konecny’s direction.
The Flyers are having their way with the Penguins in, well, just about every way. That became evident as much after the game as it was during it, as Penguins coach Dan Muse and several players levied complaints at the officiating despite having five power plays to the Flyers' three.
The Flyers' physical advantage has been most evident, including in Game 3, as they had a 44-27 edge in hits for the game, led by Owen Tippett's 11. The Flyers have been playing both harder and smarter all series long.
Who would have figured that this wildly inexperienced group would be more prepared to play playoff-style hockey than the battle-hardened Penguins?
"I think there's two different types of physicality -- it's laying a hit to create momentum or get a guy out of a play, or there's one to separate a guy from the puck," Hathaway said. "I think we've been doing them both really well."
Hathaway and his linemates, Sean Couturier and Luke Glendening, have been leading the way in that regard. After the Flyers looked a bit jittery early on, with the vast majority of them playing in front of a feverish home playoff crowd for the first time in their careers in Philadelphia or anywhere else, Hathaway and Couturier threw back-to-back hits midway through the first with the Flyers down 1-0 on an Evgeni Malkin power-play goal 4:18 into the game.
That calmed the waters on the home bench, in Konecny’s opinion, even if it took until the second period for the Flyers to get on the board.
"That line’s been doing it over and over and over again," Konecny said."Any time we need to settle down or we need a big shift, those are the guys setting the tone for us."
"I don’t know if we were nervous, but all of a sudden, the Coots line, we had a bunch of hits," coach Rick Tocchet said."I think it got the crowd going and relaxed us a little bit.I don’t want us running around,but I don’t think we ran around.I thought these were smart hits."
The fourth line did more than lay the body in the second. They helped to generate Rasmus Ristolainen’s goal midway through the second period that gave the Flyers their first lead, as well as Nick Seeler’s score two minutes and 12 seconds later that pushed the advantage to 3-1. Glendening seemed to be in Stuart Skinner’s eyes as Seeler’s point shot found daylight in the top far corner.
"Can’t say enough good things about those guys, how they’re leading us, how they’re playing, and the momentum they’re bringing for us," Noah Cates said.
Cates’ third-period power-play goal provided a cushion. Erik Karlsson brought the Penguins back to within 3-2 when his point shot snuck through Dan Vladar. But a delay of game penalty on Anthony Mantha about 90 seconds later gave the Flyers another advantage. Cates was denied on a breakaway early on the power play; but moments later, he took a pass down low from Zegras, deftly pivoted toward the goal, and cleanly beat Skinner to restore the two-goal cushion with 7:30 left to play. The Flyers cruised from there.
The Flyers came into the game an ugly 0 for 7 on the power play. They finished 2 for 3 in Game 3, though, answering the Malkin and Karlsson goals with scores of their own.
"It's not about your percent; it's about when you get one in the postseason," Cates said. "Can't say enough good things about Ziggy's goal; how big that was; giving us momentum -- and the goal late in third was big."
The turning point, though, was that wild fracas early in the second period. Not only did it change Game 3, but also it probably booked the Flyers' ticket to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"You're fighting for ice; you're trying to fight for blue paint and things are usually going to happen," Konecny said."Try as best you can to play between the whistles.Afterwards;if things get out of hand;just try not to be the extra guy going in."
Konecny wasn't, this time. And it made all the difference.
"It ended up working out in our favor," he said."We got some momentum out of it,and that's kind of it."