SUNRISE, Fla. -- Mike Sullivan didn't have much to say on the way things got a little chippy in the third period of the Penguins' 4-1 loss to the Panthers.
"I just think it's hockey," Sullivan said. "Both teams are emotionally invested."
Where it all began was midway through the third period. Jason Zucker was racing into the Panthers end chasing a puck, trailed by Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad. Zucker and Ekblad collided, and when Zucker lurched forward to reach for the puck, he ran into Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who had came out of his net to try to play the puck.
Bobrovsky's helmet came off in the collision, and he was irate. Zucker was already down in the corner after crashing into the boards, and Bobrovsky jumped on him to defend himself:
"Accidental play, obviously," Zucker said afterward of what happened. "It's not something I do on a regular basis, as you guys know. I push the puck past Ekblad there and I'm just trying to make a play. He comes out and plays the puck, and I was in a position that the way Ekblad pushed me, I was on one leg. I couldn't get out of the way. I never want to hit a goalie in anyway. As you know, it's not something I do. It's an unfortunate play."
Bobrovsky didn't buy that it was accidental.
"I thought he threw the elbow on purpose," Bobrovsky told reporters. "I didn't like that, it was a dirty play. I tried to get up and protect myself. He could easily avoid that hit, and he didn't. ... At the very last second, I saw him in the peripheral vision that he got his elbow."
What followed was a pile-up on top of Zucker, and Bobrovsky had to be pulled back by an official.
Even if Bobrovsky had kept wailing on Zucker, the Penguins' skaters are in a tough position. You just don't often see skaters retaliate against goalies, "the code" of the game just doesn't allow it. The only player who could really stand up to a goalie is the goalie at the other end of the ice. Goalie fights have become nearly extinct in the game these days, and we nearly had one in this one.
Casey DeSmith considered skating the length of the ice and going after Bobrovsky, but officials broke it up.
"I mean, if (Bobrovsky) kept going at our players, I was probably going to try to go down," DeSmith said with a hint of a smile. "But the ref got him out of there and the ref told me to stay. So I didn't have to head down there."
