Flyers 8, Penguins 2

The Flyers handed the Penguins their worst defeat of the season tonight. The Pens didn't take defeat lying down.

Five Penguins received game misconduct penalties, mainly because they continued to take shots at the Flyers. Some were bright, some... not so much (like Laraque's safe call at second base in taking out Martin Biron)

I'm not even going to talk about the actual game, because that was over by the end of the second period. What I would like to talk about is the location of Ben Eager for the last 17 minutes of the third period.

Eager really rocketed the funny business into high gear with a blatant elbow into the face of Georges Laraque, though the refs amazingly lost their whistles and were unable to call him for a penalty. Laraque reacted and dropped the gloves, but Eager, the tough guy that he is, kept his gloves on.

Eager wasn't going to get off the hook, however, and before he could leave the ice, Gary Roberts intercepted and enacted a bit of revenge. After some well-televised exchanges between Laraque and Eager in the penalty box, I was psyched to see Laraque use Eager as a human punching bag (because, if Roberts could beat him pretty thoroughly, what would Laraque do?)

So what happened then? The Tough Guy Flyers, who have been warned by the league to cut down on the cheap shots, were unable to handle things man to man, and didn't put Eager back on the ice for the rest of the game. What a complete wuss-out of a move. Eager was probably hiding under the bench. That's the only reason I can think of not to put him back out there.

It's probably good for little Ben that he wasn't back out there - Laraque had gone psycho by that point (for the first time in his Penguins career). He broke his stick over Rory Fitzpatrick on a cross-checking penalty, and then repaid Mary Biron for gesturing to Crosby to come and fight by taking his legs out. Not very bright, but I think it was kind of like Nuke Lalooshe hitting the mascot in Bull Durham - you never know what Georges is going to do next.

Remember the feeling that 8 games are too many against divisional opponents? Scratch that. I want the Flyers back soon. The end of January is too long to wait. Maybe they can schedule an exhibition, like they do in soccer. In soccer, they're called a Friendly. In our relevant nomenclature, we can call it a Bloody.

Man, do I hate the Flyers.

Next up: The Pens better keep the bad mood - the Sens are coming to the Igloo on Thursday.