Trevor Zegras SPEAKS on Brawl Vs Pittsburgh Penguins In Overtime, Flyers’ Sam Ersson Day-To-Day

Trevor Ziggress tells his side of the story of the scrum and brawl that ended overtime last night against the Pittsburgh Penguins. And Rick Tocket talks about Ziggress’s attempts to change his perception as an NHL hockey player. I’m Charlie Oconor with the PHLY Flyers and PHLY Sports and these are your Flyers postpractice notes. Now, the Flyers came away with a big win on Tuesday night, 32 shootout victory over the rival Pittsburgh Penguins. But it wasn’t just the win that people were talking about the morning after. It was the crazy way the game ended. Ended in a big brawl at the end of overtime. Ended up keeping guys like Trevor Zaggers and Sydney Crosby out of the shootout cuz they both got misconducts for their end ofame activities. And Ziggers in particular was absolutely right in the middle of things. First, it was his shot just after the buzzer at the end of overtime that kind of kicked off the scrum, the brawl to begin with. And then just as it was dying down, Tyson Forester was still battling with two Pittsburgh Penguins, Parker Wtherspoon and Nola on the ice. Things were calming down a bit. Zager skates over, pushes Achari’s helmet off, and that sparked everything back up again. Now, Flyers fans and Flyers players were universally in favor of Trevor Seager’s actions, but let’s just say that he got some backlash on social media from fans of other teams and league observers saying that first off, he shouldn’t have messed with Achari, who was not paying attention to Ziggress on a pile and then also should have stood up for his actions and fought Achari because Achari went after him hard when he got up screaming after he realized his helmet got knocked off. Today we had a chance to talk to Zagris and see what he had to say about the situation. When your teammates are in there, you kind of got to jump in there. And I just didn’t like that there was two of them on him. Yeah. And not that I was going to go in there and like try and fight him. But I thought that was the best way to get him off of him. Frankly, as the video shows, I think he was right because they got off Tyson Farser quick directing their attention and being angry at Ziggress instead. Ziggers also said that he didn’t hear the buzzer at the end of overtime and that’s why he took that shot just a little bit after time ticked away to start the whole thing. Look, you can believe that if you want. That’s up to you. But the fact of the matter is Ziggers has the full support of his teammates in the Flyers locker room. And in the end, that’s all that matters. He did wish he would have been allowed to participate in the shootout. He said he did not know there was a rule that if you got a 10-minute misconduct at the end of overtime that you would no longer be allowed to be a shootout participant. He called it a dumb rule and said he watched the shootout in the tunnel and was very impressed in particular by Bobby Brink’s move. He said he saw Brink working on that move a few days ago in practice. Then he got to see it work in a real game and that was very exciting for him. Talking more about Ziggress, though, it was a little surprise to a lot of people to see Zegris mixing it up to the degree that he was in Tuesday night’s game. Given that there is a leaguewide perception about Ziggress that he’s more of a finesse, skilled guy, doesn’t play a hard game. And Ziggress has made it clear going into this season, that’s a perception that he wants to change. There was a feature story that came out on ESPN.com before the season started written by Greg Washinsky where Ziggress said to Winsky that he wants to change the perception around him. He no longer wants to be thought of just as someone who’s good at hockey. He wants to be viewed as a hockey player. And as all hockey players know, there’s a big distinction between the two. And unsurprisingly, his new head coach, Rick Tockett, wanted to make sure that Zegris understood that distinction as well when he was getting to know the player at camp. Takett remembered today after practice when he was asked about Ziggress that he had a conversation with the player in camp and he basically asked him, “Do you want to be social media famous or do you want to win titles?” And Taka came away very happy with Ziggress’s response. Yeah, like I said, Trez, he’s a great kid and uh you can really be um he’s an honest kid. Like you can be honest with him and I we talked I said this started training camp. I said, “Are you doing stuff for clicks on social media? Are you you doing stuff to win hockey?” And um his he he wants to win hockey games. Like everybody has this perception he’s a he wants to be on social, you know, do the Michigan and all that stuff, which is fine. But I think if you watch his practices for me, he’s starting to really like before he like, you know, wants fancy pucks on the two ones. It’s now you’ll see he’ll drive. Like the other day in practice, he had four shots that were unbelievable shots because he drove and he shot like, you know, the way you’re supposed to do it instead of going down, you know, it’s more of a show, right? And I think he doesn’t want to be that perception and and I think that’s helping his game. That’s what I think. Should be doing stuff for not clicks. He should be doing stuff for winning hockey. and that’s what he wants. And I think there’s a fallacy that he wants to be some social media guy and um which is good. It’s good for us. So far, it certainly looks to be working through nine games. Ziggers has two goals and seven assists. So, he’s a point per game player. If you’re looking at his underlying numbers of five on five, his defensive metrics are significantly better. And obviously, he’s showing no signs of being scared to step in and defend his teammates on the ice. As for the actual practice itself on Wednesday here at the Flyers Training Center in Vorhees, there were two surprised absences. Christian D’vorak and goalender Sam Emerson, fresh off of his big win the night before. Now, D’vorak’s absence seems minor. The Flyers dubbed it a maintenance day. Expect him good to go for the team’s next game on Thursday. Arison’s absence though, a little bit more concerning. Now, Rick Taka did downplay the injury, but he called Arison daytoday. Said he suffered a little tweak. didn’t specify when. My guess is it might have happened as he was preparing for practice today on Wednesday cuz he certainly didn’t seem hurt in that shootout helping the Flyers to the big win. But here’s the problem. The Flyers are coming up on a three in4 stretch starting Thursday. Presumably Arison was going to at least get one of those games, probably only one. I assumed Var was going to get Thursday, Arison Saturday, and then Var again Sunday. But if Arison is dayto-day, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be ready to go for Saturday. Maybe the Flyers will have to look to their AHL team and potentially give Alexi Kolas off his first NHL start of the season. I’m Charlie Okconor of PHLY Sports. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

PHLY Sports’ Charlie O’Connor was on the scene in Voorhees, NJ for Flyers’ practice after their big, chaotic shootout victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Trevor Zegras spoke to the media after practice today regarding the huge melee at the end of overtime and his misconduct penalty forcing him out of the shootout. New head coach Rick Tocchet also spoke on Zegras’ actions and what he’s seeing in the new Flyer.

Two surprising injury updates are also discussed regarding Christian Dvorak and Sam Ersson.

Watch our EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Danny Briere, Rick Tocchet, Keith Jones, and Dan Hilferty NOW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgfE9_8bOz8

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