Tensions were high in the final two minutes of the Penguins' 3-0 loss to the Flyers in Game 2.
Kris Letang hit Noah Cates then punched Cam York, leading to a little brawl that led to himself, Anthony Mantha and Nick Seeler getting 10-minute misconducts. In the final seconds of the game, Parker Wotherspoon went at Owen Tippett with a cross-check, resulting in more chaos that ended up with Wotherspoon, Noel Acciari and Rasmus Ristolainen getting 10-minute misconducts of their own.
Frustration boiling over? Or setting the tone for next game?
"You'd have to ask the guys on the ice," Dan Muse said when I asked him. "I mean, I think there should be frustration. We should be frustrated. We just lost two games at home. And so I think with frustration, how are you going to respond? How are we going to respond? And so I would hope every single guy in that room, the entire staff, nobody's happy right now. Nobody should be. Tomorrow, we're going to have to make a decision in terms of are we going to stay with it? Stay with what we want to do, get to our game, which we haven't gotten to in two games? Or are we going to let frustration continue to boil over into the next one? And so that's going to be a choice we, together, all of us, including myself, are going to have to make here over the next 24 hours."
None of the guys who were in those late-game scrums were in the locker room afterward, having had a head start on their teammates in getting out of there. But for the players who were in that room, there was clearly some frustration over being down in the series, but not frustration in the sense that they were letting themselves get down. There was a quiet confidence in knowing what they need to do differently in Philadelphia, and in knowing how they've responded to adversity throughout the season.
Stuart Skinner offered his take on the overall vibe, and he doesn't think it's quite frustration at all -- it's fight.
"I think we've just got some fight in our game right now," he said. "They took two games in our barn, so we're not going to let that go easy. That's where our fight comes in. And we're trying to get some juice going in this room, and show ourselves, show them, show the fans, show everybody that it's not going to be easy beating us. And we're going to show that."
The Penguins showed some of that fight in the third period, not just with the rough stuff. They outshot the Flyers 13-6 in that frame. Out-attempted them 28-10. Their seven high-danger chances were three more than they had in the first 40 minutes combined.
The Penguins have it in them. They've just got to channel that frustration they feel now into more fight in Game 3.
THE ASYLUM
The 'frustration' turns to fight
Tensions were high in the final two minutes of the Penguins' 3-0 loss to the Flyers in Game 2.
Kris Letang hit Noah Cates then punched Cam York, leading to a little brawl that led to himself, Anthony Mantha and Nick Seeler getting 10-minute misconducts. In the final seconds of the game, Parker Wotherspoon went at Owen Tippett with a cross-check, resulting in more chaos that ended up with Wotherspoon, Noel Acciari and Rasmus Ristolainen getting 10-minute misconducts of their own.
Frustration boiling over? Or setting the tone for next game?
"You'd have to ask the guys on the ice," Dan Muse said when I asked him. "I mean, I think there should be frustration. We should be frustrated. We just lost two games at home. And so I think with frustration, how are you going to respond? How are we going to respond? And so I would hope every single guy in that room, the entire staff, nobody's happy right now. Nobody should be. Tomorrow, we're going to have to make a decision in terms of are we going to stay with it? Stay with what we want to do, get to our game, which we haven't gotten to in two games? Or are we going to let frustration continue to boil over into the next one? And so that's going to be a choice we, together, all of us, including myself, are going to have to make here over the next 24 hours."
None of the guys who were in those late-game scrums were in the locker room afterward, having had a head start on their teammates in getting out of there. But for the players who were in that room, there was clearly some frustration over being down in the series, but not frustration in the sense that they were letting themselves get down. There was a quiet confidence in knowing what they need to do differently in Philadelphia, and in knowing how they've responded to adversity throughout the season.
Stuart Skinner offered his take on the overall vibe, and he doesn't think it's quite frustration at all -- it's fight.
"I think we've just got some fight in our game right now," he said. "They took two games in our barn, so we're not going to let that go easy. That's where our fight comes in. And we're trying to get some juice going in this room, and show ourselves, show them, show the fans, show everybody that it's not going to be easy beating us. And we're going to show that."
The Penguins showed some of that fight in the third period, not just with the rough stuff. They outshot the Flyers 13-6 in that frame. Out-attempted them 28-10. Their seven high-danger chances were three more than they had in the first 40 minutes combined.
The Penguins have it in them. They've just got to channel that frustration they feel now into more fight in Game 3.
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