Larry Brown Sports

If the Flyers’ pursuit of the Stanley Cup ends this round at the hands of the Devils, at least they beat the Penguins. For many fans in the Philadelphia area, that will likely be the mindset. The Flyers knocked off the Penguins with relative ease in the opening round of the playoffs and they have certainly had their fair share of fun with it. First there was this insulting Philly newspaper cover directed at Sidney Crosby, and now a Philadelphia bar is getting in on the fun by serving a beer called “Crosby Tears.”

According to the 700 Level, a brewery called Notting Head located in the center city is currently offering “Crosby Tears” on its menu for $6.50 with the following description:

“STRONG ALE (8.7%ABV)… WHINE-LIKE IN “HONOR” OF ITS NAMESAKE… ORANGE HUED LIKE THE TEAM THAT SENT HIM HOME FOR THE SUMMER… THE PERFECT COMPLEMENT TO A PLAYOFF RUN”

Burned. When folks from Pittsburgh come into the bar and a fight breaks out, the owners better not be angry.

Those of us who have dogs can totally understand what Karl Alzner was feeling on Wednesday night when he returned home to find that his dogs had gone on a destructive rampage. Do we know what it feels like to lose a triple-overtime game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs? No, but we certainly can relate to coming home after a terrible day at work to find that our dog(s) must have been sniffing glue or something and decided to go hog wild on our living room.

On the bright side, at least someone was having fun while the Capitals were in the process of falling into a 2-1 series hole against the Rangers. From the look of it, the dogs managed to get their paws on some magazine pages, a slipper, some newspapers, and they even got some chewing action in on that red bag sitting on the chair. Karl may have had a night to forget, but his dogs will remember this one forever.

H/T to SB Nation via SI Hot Clicks

What this picture tells me is that all the padding a hockey player wears on their legs literally prevents them from shattering a knee. A lot of people think taking a slap shot off the leg during a hockey game doesn’t hurt because of the padding, but I’m pretty sure the photo above contradicts that line of thinking. Blackhawks defenseman Sami Lepisto took a puck to the inside of the knee in during a recent playoff game against the Coyotes. The result was a bruise across his entire leg.

This might not look quite as nasty as other hockey injuries like this one or this one, but I’m sure it hurts just as much — if not more. Even further evidence of how tough some of these dudes are.

H/T Deadspin

In a scene straight out of the “Three Stooges,” Florida Panthers teammates John Madden and Tomas Kopecky collided mid-ice, with Madden getting badly bloodied.

The collision occured in the first two minutes of Game 7 against the Devils, and unsurprisingly, Madden returned later in the period after missing about 13 minutes. You know the only thing worse than getting jacked up by a teammate? Getting jacked up by a teammate in a losing effort; The Devils won 3-2 in double overtime to advance to the second round. New Jersey visits Philadelphia for Game 1 on Sunday.

Below is a look at Madden’s crooked, cotton-filled nose later in the game:

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NHL play-by-play announcer Dave Strader ventured into a touchy area with his final call of the Predators-Red Wings series on Friday night. Nashville had just beaten Detroit 2-1 to win the series in five games, and Strader celebrated the moment with a questionable, and borderline racist pun.

“Honkytown has taken down Hockeytown,” was his call for the series.

Detroit is affectionately called “Hockeytown” because of the Red Wings’ success and the passion of the fans. “Honky” is a racist term for a white person, though there is a type of music/bar called “Honky-tonk,” which would be less offensive.

Let’s hope for Strader’s sake he was referring to Nashville as a honky-tonk bar/music town rather than a city full of honkys. Next time just play it straight, Strader, and don’t try to say something cute that can be taken the wrong way.

The Capitals may have beaten the Bruins 2-1 to tie their first-round playoff series at two, but Alex Ovechkin was the big loser for this embarrassing moment. Ovechkin was trying to hop over the boards during a line change, but it looks like he lost his concentration, along with his balance, and tumbled over. The hits keep coming for Ovi, who has only scored one goal in the series.

At first glance, it may have looked like the hit Raffi Torres threw on Marian Hossa Tuesday night was clean. Watching it on TV during game speed made it tough to judge, but after seeing the replay it’s clear that Torres did a number of illegal things. As you can hear in the call in the video above, former player and current Coyotes analyst Tyson Nash disagrees that the play was dirty.

“That is as clean of a hit as you are going to get,” Nash said after viewing the replay according to CSNChicago.com. “I don’t have a problem with this, he comes in, he explodes through that hit, and hits him with the left shoulder.”

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At this particular point in time, the Philadelphia Daily News can pretty much say whatever it wants about the Penguins. Sidney Crosby may not actually be a coward and surprised us all when he got into it with some of the Flyers earlier in the series, but at the moment Philadelphia owns Pittsburgh. Most of us expected the match-up between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds in the Eastern Conference to be competitive, with many predicting that Crosby and company would come out on top in the interstate rivalry.

Instead, Philly leads the series 3-0 and has a chance to send Pittsburgh to the golf course on Wednesday night. If ever there were an opportune time to call your opponent’s star player a coward, the day of a possible sweep is it.

H/T @lou_dubois

Karl Alzner may earn respect from his teammates for standing up to Milan Lucic on Monday night, but he may have also signed himself up for a beating. During a chippy 4-3 Boston win that went back and forth all night, a scuffle broke out late in the third period. Per usual, Lucic was at the center of it. When Alzner came up behind him and put him in a headlock during the dust-up, Lucic was not pleased. He was even less pleased when Alzner called him a baby and made a crying gesture at him.

“I don’t even know what to say on my side to show I’m not a crybaby,” Lucic said after the game according to the Washington Post. “That’s a lot coming from a guy who I think has two roughing penalties in three years.”

Bruins reporter Joe Haggerty asked Chris Kelly about the incident after the game, and Kelly said he doesn’t think Lucic has ever cried and that he came out of the womb angry. He’s certainly angry now.

Good for Alzner for trying to be brave, but he has now officially infuriated the young man who was voted the toughest player in the NHL this season by his peers. When people drop the gloves with Lucic, stuff like this tends to happen. Alzner might want to throw in a couple extra sets of curls before he gets back on the ice.

H/T Deadspin

The Vancouver Canucks have officially entered panic mode. Down 2-0 to the Kings in their Western Conference Quarterfinals playoff series, the Canucks are switching to backup goalie Cory Schneider over Roberto Luongo.

The No. 8 seed Kings won the first two games of the series in Vancouver by 4-2 scores. Luongo stopped 57 of 64 (89%) shots he faced (one of the goals was an empty-netter). It’s not a terrible performance, but it was enough to prompt coach Alain Vigneault to make the switch.

“Obviously being down, 2-0, the way we are right now is not a reflection of the goaltending that we’ve had so far; but it’s time to change the momentum a little bit and this is one of the cards we might have,” Vigneault said.

Vigneault called both men “great goaltenders,” and forward Ryan Kesler points out that despite being the backup in Vancouver, Schneider would be the starter on most other teams. Schneider had the second-best save percentage in the NHL this season and was third in goals-against average.

Fans who have followed the Canucks in the playoffs the past two years will recognize this is nothing new — they also switched from Luongo to Schneider for Game 6 against the Blackhawks last year. The Canucks lost that game and went back to Luongo for Game 7, which they won. Luongo was also pulled during Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Bruins, and there were calls for Schneider to start Game 5. Luongo started Game 5 and shut out the Bruins, but he played poorly in the final two games and the Canucks lost the series.

UPDATE: Schneider stopped 19 of 20 shots but the Canucks lost 1-0.

Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-US PRESSWIRE