The Flyers may be hovering below .500, currently standing on
the outside of the playoff picture looking in, but all of that goes out the
window tonight. The Pittsburgh Penguins are coming to the Wells Fargo Center to
resume what many observers believe has become the best rivalry in the NHL, if
not all of professional sports.
Adam Kimelman for NHL.com writes that the Philly-Pitt feud has
peaked over the past year, tracing the origin of the bad blood back to the end
of the 2011-’12 regular season, detailing the events on and off the ice that have
made the Penguins so much fun to hate. It’s definitely worth checking out if
for no other reason than to relive moments such as Claude Giroux calling his
shot.
Speaking of which, here’s an interesting question to poll
the audience: what has been your favorite moment from this rivalry over the
past year?
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I’m sort of partial to Scott Hartnell taunting Malkamania,
or Peter Laviolette going after Pens head coach Dan Bylsma, or maybe even the
Flyers’ 6-5 win a couple weeks ago just because it’s fresh in my mind. So hard to choose just one!
It's tough to think of another rivalry that has delivered as much and as often as these clubs have over a relatively small timeframe. There seems to be little debate that it's the most heated match-up in hockey at the moment, but is there a rivalry more intense in any sport right now?
We’ll have more on the third Flyers-Pens encounter of the season
a little closer to game time.
>> Penguins-Flyers rivalry has peaked in the past year [NHL.com]
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