Sidney Crosby got into the spirit of this year’s throwback playoff series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers by trying to fool the officials with some of his old tricks.
The future Hockey Hall of Fame center received a two-minute minor penalty for embellishing after he tried to sell an accidental high stick from Garnet Hathaway before a faceoff in Wednesday’s first period. While Hathaway was originally sent to the box on his own, he seemingly kicked up enough of a fuss that the officials met and also sent Crosby to the sin bin.
Hathaway was adamant that Crosby dove to try to draw the call, implored the referees to watch the replay, and even tried to rough up Crosby before heading to the box.
Crosby, who earned a reputation as a diver early in his career, had actually not received an embellishment penalty in his 21 seasons in the NHL until Wednesday night. TNT analyst Brian Boucher, a former Flyers goaltender, remarked that he was “surprised” Crosby had never been punished for diving before, which is notable, considering he played during Sid’s heyday and has two functioning eyes.
While the 38-year-old forward had an embellishing first, he also recorded his first point of the series earlier in the period on an Evgeni Malkin power-play goal.
Crosby’s penalty was just the first of many in Game 3 of this heated Metropolitan Division rivalry matchup. During the first 5:34 of the second period, 15 separate minor penalties were called on each team.
An all-out melee, sparked by Travis Konecny and Bryan Rust, caused most of the trouble for the referees. Every player on the ice during the play received at least a two-minute minor penalty for roughing, while Rust was handed a double minor.
The animosity seemed to spark the Flyers, who scored three unanswered goals in the second period to go up 3-1. Philadelphia came into their first home-ice game in this year’s playoffs already up 2-0 in the series over Pittsburgh.
