“Yeah, that was … something.”
Erik Karlsson was still shaking his head over the “crazy” overtime period here in Philadelphia on Tuesday that featured two disallowed goals, two failed power plays, and a little brawl all in the five-minute extra frame.
It took a shootout to decide the outcome, with the Flyers securing the 3-2 victory and the extra point in the standings.
The Penguins, really are lucky to be leaving Philadelphia with even a point. Sure, Justin Brazeau’s sixth goal of the year gave the Penguins the game’s first lead, but momentum swung in the Flyers’ favor not long after. A power play goal by Bobby Brink tied the game, and Travis Konecny’s second period goal put the Flyers ahead after a period in which the Penguins were outshot 14-5. As the third period went on, the shot deficit grew to a 2:1 ratio in the Flyers’ favor. The Penguins started to push, though, and got the tying goal when Sidney Crosby popped a puck into the air from behind the net that bounced off goaltender Samuel Ersson and in.
All that — the extension of Brazeau’s hot start, the concerning trend of the wide shot disparities, the wild goal from Crosby to force overtime — is still easily overshadowed by what transpired in overtime.
The Penguins thought they may have won the game less than a minute in. Evgeni Malkin scored straight off the bench 49 seconds in on a delayed penalty call after Trevor Zegras slashed Letang … but it was quickly waived off. Malkin jumped onto the ice too early, before Arturs Silovs had even made it to the blue line as he was making a beeline to the bench from his net:
It negated the goal, but it wasn’t exactly “too many men” — if the reason for too many players on the ice is that exact scenario where a goaltender is coming off the ice, it’s simply a whistle.
“I heard the whistle for Geno’s goal, unfortunately,” Karlsson told me. “And then I saw Arty coming back, and I kind of realized what was happening. So I think it was pretty clear. You know, we tried to take advantage of it. It happens a lot. They caught it, I think it was fair.”
So play continued, and the Penguins kept their power play, coming up short on the 4-on-3 man advantage. Both the Penguins and Flyers trading chances as overtime went on, then Malkin was called for hooking with 1:46 remaining to put the Flyers on the power play for the remainder of overtime. And then with 24.4 seconds left, Tyson Foerster rang a shot off the post and in:
The Flyers celebrated, and some started to leave the bench for the locker room before it was announced in-arena that the goal was being reviewed automatically by the league for offside. The goal was overturned, with it being ruled that on the zone entry Zegras had taken the puck in the zone, then out, then back in again and making the other two Flyers skaters offside.
The clock ticked down, and in the waning seconds, Zegras slashed Parker Wotherspoon in the back of the leg, igniting some tensions. After everything died down and players were starting to return to their benches, Foerster slashed Wotherspoon from behind too and ignited a small brawl with all those on the ice — including Ryan Shea and Noel Acciari, with Acciari throwing himself into the ensuing pile in defense of Wotherspoon in an apparent attempt to protect him:
“I got a slash in the back of the leg,” Wotherspoon said. “It was on after that.”
Acciari, Shea and Wotherspoon all received misconducts as a result. Any penalty over a minor would have made them ineligible for the shootout … which was no real loss in the case of those three, who wouldn’t have shot anyway unless the shootout went really long. The Flyers were hit hard with ineligible players too, with Foerster, Zegras, Jamie Drysdale and Owen Tippett receiving misconducts.
But the call was also made to give Crosby a misconduct, making him ineligible to shoot — an actual loss for the Penguins. It was seemingly a result of Crosby leaving the bench, despite overtime being over at the time and Crosby not getting into the brawl himself. Muse could be seen yelling, “THAT’S WRONG! THAT’S WRONG!” at the officials after giving him an explanation.
I asked Muse postgame what explanation he was given from officials on Crosby’s status, and what he saw himself that clearly made him disagree, but he declined to comment on the situation entirely.
The Flyers elected to shoot first, and Silovs made an easy pad save on Konecny. Bryan Rust shot first for the Penguins, with Ersson sliding his pad out to make a toe save on the attempt.
Matvei Michkov lifted a backhand shot over Silovs to open the second round, and Malkin responded by going post-and-in to tie the shootout.
Brink shot third for the Flyers, coming in wide and drawing Silovs to the right. A couple of quick dekes back and forth caused Silovs to stumble as he reacted, allowing Brink to tuck the puck past Silovs’ glove and put the Flyers back ahead in the shootout.
And so with Crosby ineligible, Muse put the fate of the game on the shoulders of one of his young rookies, sending Ville Koivunen out to shoot in a must-score situation.
It was a bit of interesting call, especially with a number of established veterans, including some with shootout experience like Letang still available and waiting. I asked Muse why he called on Koivunen, and he said it was a result of “knowing his past.”
“Going through, talking with (coach) Kirk MacDonald prior to the year, and he had a penalty shot,” Muse said. “We’ve seen it before.”
Muse, of course, was referring to Koivunen’s penalty shot goal just last week against the Flyers’ AHL affiliate, in which he skated in slowly, stickhandled with a couple of quick dekes as he picked up speed before tucking the puck five-hole:
When Koivunen got the call to shoot here, he said that he didn’t have much of anything going through his head.
“I knew what I was going to do,” he told me.
And so Koivunen gave a repeat performance of last week’s penalty shot goal, only to get stymied by Ersson this time:
“It’s worked before,” he said. “I thought it was going to work today.”
It didn’t. But given how down-and-out the Penguins looked at points earlier in the game, the late rally to tie it, and the wild emotional swings from both teams scoring disallowed goals in the extra frame, it’s hard to dwell too much on anything that ensued in the skills competition that closed it. If there’s one takeaway to be had, it was that it was nice to see Muse turn to a rookie in that big moment, and not even just for the sake of sending out a young guy. Based on Koivunen’s very recent history, he genuinely seemed like a great option at the time. And he was. That move of his will pay off at this level eventually, surely.
The loss brings the Penguins to 7-2-2. They’re tied with the Devils and Mammoth for the top of the league’s standings, albeit with one more game played over the Mammoth and two more than the Devils.
The Penguins are still hot. A lot of it along the way hasn’t been pretty, in this game included. But they’re finding ways to steal points despite it all, and those points add up.