Penguins Report Card: Dirty Plays, Sick Goals & Push Back v. PHI | PHN+

Philadelphia Flyers winger Travis Konecny blatantly clipped Bryan Rust with a slew foot which later drew the ire of Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. The Penguins game is about “just play,” and they proved that again on Tuesday, especially after Philadelphia defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere earned only a minor penalty for a hard cross-check on Penguins defenseman Mark Friedman as Friedman began to celebrate an empty-net goal.

The Penguins scored a power-play goal n the waning minutes, just to send a message. The Pittsburgh Penguins let Philadelphia get close a few times but pulled away for a 7-3 win at the Wells Fargo Center.

“Just plays you don’t really want to see out there. You don’t want to go too much into it, but you don’t want to see stuff like that in the game, so we got the job done getting two points,” Jake Guentzel said. “And that’s what we came here to do tonight, to bounce back from last night. So I think we did the job.”

Also, Crosby wrestled Konecny to the ice and pushed his head to the frozen floor, though not quite with Tom Wilson-like violence or injurious intent in another bit of message sending.

“I don’t think anybody was happy with (the 7-2 loss on Monday). I think (Tuesday) was a response game for all of us,” Crosby said. “But I think in particular our line, it just it wasn’t a good game (Monday), so we bounced back tonight and got important two points, and we’ll look to build off of here.”

The Xs and Os still weren’t crisp or clean. Perhaps because the Penguins are missing lightning-fast defenseman Mike Matheson, who often springs the Penguins rush then joins it as a third or fourth stick, or perhaps because Philadelphia made sure to take that game away, it caught the Penguins in between for the second and third periods.

Pittsburgh Penguins Chalkboard & Report Card