NHL Playoffs 2012: Why Penguins-Flyers Is Sure to Be an All-Time Classic

Hatred and animosity will fill the air for two weeks in the state of Pennsylvania as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers get ready for a playoff series that will be highlighted by punches, bloody noses, bruises and, oh yeah, hockey.

Never has a first-round playoff series in recent memory generated as many storylines as this year's edition of the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers.

This will mark the third time the two teams have met since 2008 and the sixth time overall. The Penguins won the previous two series, once in the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals and the other in the 2009 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

These two teams have always had acrimony against each other, but it escalated to a new level this past summer. Former Penguins legend Jaromir Jagr spurned his old team and signed with their bitter rivals, the Flyers.

Jagr had a chance to repair his shaky relationship with the Penguins by signing with them and retiring with the team that drafted him, but apparently, he decided to take the route that brought him the most monetary benefits instead. The thought of seeing No. 68 in the Orange and Black made Penguins fans sick to their stomachs.

To make matters worse, 2009 Stanley Cup hero Max Talbot also signed with the Flyers in the offseason. 

All of a sudden, two of the most beloved Penguins in team history were playing for their biggest rival. 

The Flyers won four of the six regular season meetings, but they didn't do it quietly. In the last week of the regular season, the two teams met in Pittsburgh, and it got ugly towards the end. Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette and Penguins assistant coach Tony Granato got in a shouting match standing on top of their respective benches. A brawl broke out between the players on the ice, and the intensity continued well after the game and into the press conferences, with name-calling between the two head coaches.

That set the stage for this series. 

Generally, players don't fight in the playoffs, because they don't want to risk being off the ice in crucial situations. That rule will most definitely be broken in these next two weeks.

Aside from all the Talbot and Jagr storylines and the physicality that will indubitably ensue once the puck drops, there is still hockey to be played, and we are set to see great back-and-forth action between these two teams.

Neither team lacks star power and scoring. 

With Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby back in the lineup, the team is averaging 4.5 goals per game in the last 15 games. The team also has Evgeni Malkin, who led the league in scoring this season with 109 points.

Philadelphia has Claude Giroux, who was third in the league with 93 points and was a major piece on a deep scoring team. The Flyers also have enigmatic goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, who they signed in the summer to solve their goaltending issues. Bryzgalov struggled throughout much of the season, but he bounced back, finishing with an 11-3-1 record in the final month of the season with four shutouts and a .939 save percentage. 

There's just so much to watch for in this series. It would be a surprise if these bitter rivals don't go seven games, and there's a good chance that the winner of this series will head to the Stanley Cup Final. 

It may be a first-round matchup, but it has all the makings of a Stanley Cup Final.

Enjoy it, folks. 

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