The Flyers were naturally somewhat upbeat after their 6-2 fight-filled win over the Senators at home last night, marking their eighth win in nine games since the new year started. And, just as naturally, a lot of the questions being asked by the reporters in the locker room focused on the five third period fights that will be the most memorable part of the game. Intentionally or not, some the quotes they got out of the Flyers were pretty hilarious.
Claude Giroux was one of two entirely surprising combatants in this one, and we'll get this post started with what he had to say about throwing down:
Why so many fights in this one?
"Oh there were a couple hits and I don't know, the fans like it and it's a good time."
How many fights did you have?
"Maybe eight or ten. I don't really fight. When I get pissed off at something, I try finding the smallest guy on the other team and go fight him."
Did Carter jump in to try and defend you?
"I don't know, I'm not too sure what happened. Two guys kind of jumped me and Cartsy had to jump in. But I just felt like I had to stick up for myself."
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Carter was a man of few words, but his quotes were also pretty funny:
How long had it been since you've been in a fight?
"A couple years."
Yeah, how did it feel out there?
"It was all right."
Do you remember your last one? Ryan Whitney?
"Yep."
It was a sleeper until the third and all those fights... why so many fights?
"I don't know."
Just felt like it?
"I wasn't doing much else out there. I figured I'd do something."
What were you thinking when you went after Winchester, was that because of two guys jumping Claude?
"Yeah, I mean you have to get in there and do something."
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Amen.
The captain had a great night on the ice, with two goals and two assists, but Richie wasn't among the five fighters, and he was pretty clear that he didn't want to talk about fights after the game.
Why so many fights?
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the guys who fought.”
Why didn’t you fight?
“I don’t like fighting. I was on the bench.”
Jeff Carter doesn’t fight ever either.
“He gets a couple. I don’t know. He’s tough.”
It didn’t look like he had been in a fight in a while out there.
“Tell him that.”
Wellll okay then... Moving right along... (Richie's quotes on everything not related to the fights were more substantive, he was just clearly uninterested in talking about other people's fights.)
Even Sergei Bobrovsky had to answer fight questions though:
Did you hear the “goalie fight” chant at the end of the game?
“I did not hear it.”
Did you feel left out with all that fighting going on?
“Well, everyone had a couple so I don’t know where I would fit in.”
Have you ever been in a fight?
“No.”
Pronger wasn't shy about answering:
Are you disappointed that you didn’t get to drop the gloves?
“Well there were an awful lot of them out there. We answered, they were running around and we answered them.”
You know that feeling you had when you saw Claude Giroux's bare hands flying toward a helmet? Peter Laviolette was right there with ya:
Peter, what’s going through your mind, on the bench, when you see your skill guys (Claude Giroux and Jeff Carter) throwing punches?
“Probably not something you want to see on a regular basis when it comes to those guys. But you never know what every game has in store for you. Guys were pretty competitive in the third period to make sure we got a win. It’s just the way the game happened and I thought our guys did a great job.”
Do you worry (when you see something like that)?
“I think you are always worried when you see something like that. That’s part of the game; you have to take things as they come and that’s what happened tonight. That’s the way they played. Like I said, I think we did a good job in the third period tonight.”
For videos of the carnage and a complete recap, click here.
AP Photo