Scrum thing wicked this way comes: Flyers unleash fury on Penguins after on-ice chaos

PHILADELPHIA -- The Flyers knew what the environment was going to be like on Wednesday. 

They knew the crowd was going to be completely off the chain. More than eight years of frustration, more than 10 years without a playoff win on home ice, all culminating into one night of a temperamental teapot tipping over. 

The veterans talked about remining even-keeled. Coach Rick Tocchet publicly cautioned his team about getting too caught up in the emotion of it all prior to the game.

"I've been in situations where you can be over-keyed," Tocchet said. "We know the city. We know what's going on, and we're excited to have playoff hockey back, but we've got to be careful. We don't want to be over-exuberant. What happens is you run around. ... (There's) piles and you punch a guy, these are the things you have to be careful of. I don't want to take their aggressive and using the crowd for our advantage away, but this is where experience comes in. we're going to have to play our game, which is a smart game, and we can't be over-exuberant."

That was all well and good for the first 24 minutes and 33 seconds of Game 3. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

And while the moment may have ultimately been a bit over-officiated, as referees Francois St. Laurent and Jake Brenk sent 10 guys to the penalty box and took more than 10-and-ahalf minutes to get everything sorted out, upsetting both coaches with the long delay, it was the moment that everything changed for the Flyers.

At the middle of it all was a guy who had been one of the guys preaching keeping emotions in check, but wasn't very good at taking his own advice. 

Travis Konecny had just had a glorious chancee to score the Flyers first goal and tie the game. But Pittsburgh goalie Stuart Skinner made the save and Penguins forward Bryan Rust grabbed Konecny in a bear hug as the whistle sounded.

Not taking kindly to Rust wrapping him up, Konecny tried to wriggle out of the grip with a backwards swim move to get his arm free to try to create leverage. In the process, he ended up elbowing Rust in the head and Rust lost his cool. 

He tackled Konecny to the ice. He threw repeated punches. He drove kenecny's head into the ice with a face wash. As the linesman tried to separate him from Konecny, he wouldn't stop and kept up the rough stuff. Once Rust was back on his feet, Konecny attempt to take his legs out from his keester, three times swinging his foot at the back of Rust's skates, but ultimately not succeeding at his goal.

When he finally got to his feet, Konencny tried to get Rust to fight, slowly dropping his gloves, but Rust skated away as if nothing happened. 

Meanwhile, all around them, the rest of the players on the ice each grabbed one another and didn't necessarily exchange pleasantries. 

Nothing got too out of hand there, but the refs, feeling like they had to keep control, although they weren't, sent everyone to the penalty box. 

Five Flyers crammed into their box, an even more comical six had to squeeze into the Penguins box as Rust was assessed a double-minor for roughing, so someone had to serve the extra two minutes. 

 It was all so confusing that even public address announcer Lou Nolan said "Here are the penalties ... we think."

On the ensuing power play, Tevor Zegras scored his first career playoff goal.. He immediately skated first to the Flyers penalty box and banged on the glass while his five teammates in the box hugged. Then Zegras was mobbed by his teammates leaning up against the glass in front of the six Penguins in their sin bin who had to sit there and just take in the celebration. 

Konecny mentioned that Christian Dvorak had indicated to the group how awesome it would be for them to celebrate a goal while stuffed in the box like a pack of sardines. 

"[Zegras] must have heard him somehow and he came flying over to the box," Konecny said. "It was pretty cool."

Usually more chatty, Zegras was understated after the game, as if the energy and emotion of the 5-2 Flyers win was all sucked out of him by the craziness of what was taking place on ice.

"I don't know," Zegras said about why he skated over the the box. "There was a lot of them in there and I figured they were going to be jumping around, so I thought if I scored I'd skate right to them for sure."

Love the goal celebration in front of the penalty box from Trevor Zegras 🤣👏🏻 #ignitetheorange pic.twitter.com/a9ZJMyyASV

— Alex Micheletti (@AlexMicheletti) April 23, 2026

The Flyers exploded from there. 

Rasmus Ristolainen scored a goal from the point less than four minutes later. A little more than two minutes after that, Nick Seeler also scored from the point. 

For a team that seemed a little tight for the first eight minutes or so of the contest, one the fuse was lit, the fire spread. 

And Tocchet admitted that there are some cases where it's O.K. to let the emotion of the game fuel that fire.

"Yeah, there are some scums and some things where, yeah, you want to hold your ground," Tocchet said. "Things like that, blocking shots, getting there for your teammates - all that stuff, the emotion was great. The crowd was really loud tonight so it's nice to see the building rocking like that. It's been awhile."

It sure has. 

Needless to say, the Penguins weren't too happy with how this all played out. Of course, had they won the game, they probably would have said it helped them channel their energy and push them forward. 

But losing instead, and finding themselves on the brink of elimination and in danger of getting swept by their most heated rival, they chose rather to point fingers at this scrum, and other officiating situations, as a leading contributor to their demise. 

"There's a scrum there and we get the extra penalty and that changed everything," Penguins coach Dan Muse said. "It took a long time to get it all sorted out,. I feel like the momentum ... listen, I'm not going to sit here making excuses. There's plenty we can do better, but that definitely factored into it."

Whether you want to take Muse at his word or not is up to you, but he was also upset at an incident in the first period prior to a faceoff where Garnet Hathaway high-sticked Sidney Crosby as he was skating by. 

Garnet Hathaway gets 2 for a high stick on Crosby... then Sid gets called for embellishment and joins him in the box.

Thoughts on the call? pic.twitter.com/o8SW0k06df

— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) April 22, 2026

At first it appeared accidental as Hathaway was awkwardly changing the position of the grip he had on his stick and it appeared unintentional as he skated past Crosby, but upon review, it seemed like Hathaway knew what he was doing. 

Of course, Crosby channeled his inner Neymar and abruptly threw himself to the ice and turtled up into a ball of alleged pain after getting clipped. 

The officials got together and sent both Hathaway and Crosby to the penalty box. Hathaway for the high stick, Crosby for embellishment. 

"We don't have a single embellishment (call) all year and Sidney Crosby doesn't have an embellishment in 21 seasons," Muse said. "Stick's in his face and they take both of them. I disagree on that strongly. Not one. Not one (embellishment) for our team all season. We didn't come into this series for it to start now. The guys have done a good job with that and Sid doesn't embellish." 

O.K., that line was funny. 

As for Hathaway's take on the matter?

"No comment," he said. 

And that fits the narrative here as well. Because, the point is, the Flyers are winning on emotion. They are a better team than the Penguins, but they also have figured out the formula on how to frustrate Pittsburgh. Beat them with an aggressive North/South game, staunch defense, superior goaltending, and channeling the emotion the right way.

The Flyers use it as jet fuel. The Penguins use it for frustration and excuses. 

And that's why the Flyers can sweep the Penguins on Saturday, plain and simple.