Pens escape with win, Letang escapes with finger sans pride

The dream is over. The 2009-10 Philadelphia Flyers will NOT finish the season 82-0-0, after losing to the other Pennsylvania team 5-4 this evening. It is a sad day for us all. How can we, as Flyers fans ever recover from this actrocity?

One day at a time I suppose, one day at a time.

The Pens didn't so much win this one as the Flyers handed it to them. Braydon Coburn even went so far as to score a goal for them. That Coburn is just a giver, I tell you.

The Flyers coughed up the puck whenever possible, whether there was a Penguin around or not, left goalie Ray Emery out to dry, all in addition to Coburn's self goal. It was a sight to behold, it really was.

In fact, if it wasn't for outstanding individual efforts from Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Danny Briere this thing could have been over early.

Fortuntely, Pittsburgh was more then up to keeping the game close. The undisciplined and uninspired play from last night's 3-0 loss to Phoenix carried over and they let the Flyers hang around long after the game should have been out of reach. They had turnover problems of their own and were carried by Evegni Malkin, who despite a goal, an assist and seeming to dominate the game for long stretches, still managed a -1 rating. Incredible.

And then there was the physical aspect of the game. Boy howdy! Surely, the biggest scrum of the night came with 1.2 seconds left in the third period. Richards went hard to the net and bowled over Pens goalie Marc Andre-Fleury. Richie cracked his head on the cross bar and was nearly kicked in the face by a falling Fleury. I'm sure fans in Pittsburgh weren't pleased by his actions, but sadly, this IS hockey. Not curling. Man up and move on, its a physical sport and there isn't anything wrong with crashing the net.

Of course, Pittsburgh wasn't going to take this lying down. In true Pens fashion a 2-1 scuffle broke out between Scott Hartnell, Kris Letang and I believe Chris Kunitz. I mean, why fight fair? Its not Penguins hockey then! Seeing this Chris Pronger came in--- apparently every the name "Chris" is big in hickey, eh?--- and did his best to bend Kunitz into a right angle, the wrong way. He almost succeded. Kunitz for one looked horrified that he wouldn't be able to cheap shot Kimmo Timonen anymore without fear of a psychotic 6' 3'' guy turning his teeth into tiddly-winks.

Somewhere along the line Letang gots a boo-boo on his finger, which of course resulted in the game being halted until an appropriately sized "Spongebob Squarepants" band-aid could be located for Letang. Allegedly, Hartnell bit him and if that was the case, I say touche to Hartnell! He's getting beat up and tackled by two guys, Letang's lucky he still has a finger. Maybe next time he'll fight fair, or else he may have a tough time playing the guitar. Of course, the question may also be raised as to just how Letang's finger got in Hartnell's mouth to begin with.

Best of all, these allegations are coming from Letang and the Pens broadcasters. Now, in case you didn't realize, the Pens broadcasters actually call the game from ON the ice, thus they were able to see exactly what happened and in NO way were are going off of hearsay and conjecture. God bless those czars of the commentary booth!

I guess Letang's mom never told him to keep his hands to himself. Oh well, we move on and hopefully he's learned himself a lesson.

Player of the Game: Jeff Carter (2 goals, 2 assists, 21:04 TOI, 7 SOG, even rating? Essh...)
Next Game: Oct. 10 vs. Anaheim (1-1-1) at 7 p.m.