The Truth About the Flyers-Penguins Brawl

(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Last night, the Flyers and Penguins met for the first time this season. The Penguins were able to grab a 5-4 victory, but it wasn't the final score that headlined this game.

None nine of the goals scored came anywhere close to being the top highlight of the night. In fact, the first 59 minutes and 55 seconds of gameplay paled in comparison to the final five.

Only the video can do justice to what happened in those final five seconds. Click here to view it.

Now, nobody expected this game to be a peaceful affair, and fights were to be expected. However, this game didn't really yield as much traditional fighting as one would expect and instead saw the Flyers go with a whole new stratagem of hockey violence.

In this video see three notable events take place during this scrum:
1) Flyers' captain and center Mike Richards plows into Penguins' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, knocking Fleury into the net.
2) Flyers winger Scott Hartnell grabs Pens' defenseman Kristopher Letang from behind, right as Letang was running into the goal, causing it to dislodge. Hartnell and Letang lock up and quickly fall to the ice, still tied up. After Letang gets up, he runs towards the Penguins locker room looking as if he has injured his finger.
3) Chris Pronger comes into the picture after a few seconds, and grabs Pens winger Chris Kunitz from behind, apparently trying to strangle Kunitz with his own jersey. After a good fifteen seconds or so of Pronger holding Kunitz, with the referees trying to free Kunitz, Pronger lets him go.

Also, in case you were wondering, the penalties levied afterwards were the following:
Mike Richards (PHI)-two-minute minor for Goaltender Interference
Scott Hartnell (PHI)-two-minute minor for Roughing
Kristopher Letang (PIT)-two-minute minor for Roughing
Chris Kunitz (PIT)-10-minute misconduct
Chris Pronger (PHI)-10-minute misconduct

So, as one can imagine, the aftermath of this scrum has been quite hard to sort out. The biggest development that has arisen from this fight is that the Penguins have alleged that Scott Hartnell actually bit Letang on the finger.

Here's what Hartnell and Letang had to say (the quotes are from the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, from an article that is linked to in the previous paragraph):

Hartnell: "A lot of stuff happens on the bottom of the pile. He had his hands in my face, doing the face wash, and we're rolling around. I can't say what happened."
Letang: "I think he knows what he did."

Obviously, we're never going to know exactly what happened between Letang and Hartnell, but I'm going to have to side with Letang here.

There aren't a lot of things that could have happened to Letang's finger that he could have confused with a bite, because the feeling of two teeth clamping down on your finger is pretty distinctive.

He could also just be making it up, but it doesn't seem like it would be worth the trouble for the Letang and the Penguins to make a false accusation. There wouldn't be sufficient evidence for the league to suspend Hartnell, which means that the allegation wouldn't really benefit the Penguins in any way.

The two most likely explanations for the biting allegation are that it was a legitimate allegation, or Letang and his teammates just wanted to get back at Hartnell for grabbing Letang from behind. Letang never made an outright accusation that Hartnell bit him, instead letting his teammates do so. He only said that Hartnell "knows what he did."

It is clear, however, that Hartnell initiated the fight, almost certainly because Letang looked ready to attack Mike Richards for plowing into Fleury.

As for what Richards did, it's pretty clear that he deserved the penalty he received. Despite not being one of the Flyers' tough guys, Richards is known for getting his hands dirty, and he may have taken his time slowing down as he barrelled towards Fleury. That being said, it's safe to pinpoint Richards as the one who lit the spark that started the scrum.

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