Sestito Accuses Teams of Dishing Pills; Says Penguins Staff Cleaned Him Up

It appears Vegas Golden Knights goalie Robin Lehner may have shaken loose a scandal of NHL medical staffs and dangerous unprescribed medications. A former Pittsburgh Penguins tough guy publicly supported Lehner while exonerating and praising the Penguins staff on Monday night.

Sestito credited the Penguins doctors with “cleaning him up.”

Saturday, Lehner accused teams of giving benzodiazepines and Ambien to players without proper prescriptions. In his following tweet, he called for the Philadelphia Flyers to fire the “dinosaur” coach Alain Vigneault. The combination of tweets unleashed speculation that the Flyers were one of the teams giving out the drugs.

Lehner clarified to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan he was not accusing Vigneault of being a part of the pill distribution.

The NHLPA and NHL have reached out the Lehner to learn more.

Former Pittsburgh Penguins and WBS Penguins forward Tom Sestito offered unprompted high praise for the Penguins medical staff on Monday night. He tweeted:

“Also, there are great organizations in the NHL, @penguins team of doctors were the ones to get me off all that shit and were dumbfounded as to why I had all of it to begin with,” Sestito tweeted.

In his 12-year career, Sestito had more success dropping the gloves than lighting lamps. The obvious inference was previous teams dished the pills. Sestito played the previous three seasons for the Vancouver Canucks, including the Utica Comets of the AHL, and two years with the Philadelphia Flyers.

As with any Tweet, keyboard experts attacked Sestito, who swatted them aside with the same ease he protected the stars he played with.

Sestito said once he was given a bottle of Toradol. In another instance, doctors gave him the drug 20 minutes before a game because his team didn’t have salary cap space to call up an injury replacement. He called the amounts of the drug that team doctors gave him “insane.”

As a Flyers fan pushed, Sestito also named the additional drugs doctors gave him.

The fact is you have no idea what you’re talking about it’s not just Toradol. Xanex Ambien Hydros insane amount of Celebrex do I need to continue?

— Tom Sestito (@TomSestito23) October 5, 2021

The big man who received a Sidney Crosby-signed stick upon the birth of his son, Killian, which read “I felt a foot taller with your Dad in the lineup,” handled himself well again on Monday night.

He had to push back on another “Twitter expert,” too:

“…When you get on a plane after a game and the doctor says take this. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and it shows, so why don’t you sit this one out.”

One thing should be clear: knowledge or decency are not requirements to offer social media opinions.

Before his tenure with the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, which ended in 2018, he played three seasons with the Vancouver Canucks (2013-15), four seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers and their AHL affiliate (2010-2013), and four seasons primarily in the Columbus Blue Jackets minor league system (2007-2010).

In an unfortunate connection, Sestito’s first coach in Vancouver was briefly Alain Vigneault. John Tortorella, then Willie Desjardins followed Vigneault in Vancouver, but Sestito played only three games under Desjardins.

The veteran retired after 13 games with the Toronto Marlies in 2019. He played 154 NHL games over 12 seasons with 10 goals, 21 points, and 499 penalty minutes.

I’m sorry to hear that brother

— Robin Lehner (@RobinLehner) October 4, 2021