The Philadelphia Flyers’ uneven play continued on Saturday. Three days after upending the Detroit Red Wings 6-3, the Bullies were pummeled by the Dallas Stars 5-1, preventing their latest bid to climb above the .500 mark on Saturday.
Obviously, this loss can be blamed on the orange and black having to go without Zac Rinaldo for essentially the entire contest. (That’s sarcasm.) Rinaldo was kicked out of the game barely one minute after the puck dropped for jumping Stars forward Antoine Roussel.
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Why the ban? It probably had something to do with the fact that Rinaldo had only been on the ice for four seconds and appeared to be completely unprovoked.
Rinaldo hopped on to the rink, chased down Roussel, dropped the gloves and started punching him in the face. When his victim fell to the ice surface to cover up, Rinaldo took one last swing before officials arrived on the scene and separated the two.
We have no idea what led to the attack. Per CSN’s Tim Panaccio, Rinaldo did not speak to reporters after the game.
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In all, Rinaldo racked up 27 minutes worth of penalties—two for instigating, five for fighting, 20 more with a pair misconducts. Amazingly, the Flyers managed to kill the seven-minute power play that ensued.
The wheels would come off in the second period though. Dallas found the back of the net four times, including a hat trick for center Tyler Seguin. Three of the Stars’ four goals were separated by a total of 1:02 on the clock.
It was the first time in 28 games as a member of the Flyers that netminder Steve Mason surrendered more than three goals in an outing.
Kimmo Timonen left the game in the second period with an injury.
This was the fourth time the Flyers had a chance to go above .500 and failed. They are 3-4-0 over the last seven.
>> Box Score [Yahoo!]
