Wednesday's Game 4 between the Washington Capitals and Philadelphia didn't reach the same level of physicality as Game 3 in which the Flyers melted down in the third period of a blowout loss, but one play did stick out as particularly dirty.
Late in the second period as Flyers goalie Michal Neuvirth froze the puck, Brayden Schenn turned to Evgeny Kuznetsov and cross-checked him in the knee. This occurred after the whistle had blown and seemingly without provocation.
You can see the play in the video above.
"There's really no way to put it, but that's pretty cheap," Tom Wilson said. "You come in after a whistle and you target a guy's knee like that? There's really no time for that."
Head coach Barry Trotz said it's not the first time the Flyers have done that to one of the Caps' stars this series.
"That's twice," Trotz said. "There was a [Wayne] Simmonds one earlier in the series that was brought up to the league. Once is maybe a coincidence, twice is not."
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In Game 2, Simmonds also went low on Alex Ovechkin away from the play. Trotz said both plays had been brought to the league's attention, but that he did not know if there would be any response.
"I think that it's a dangerous play," Trotz said. "I think it should not be in our game and any player who's looking to wreck a guy's knee or injure him, especially when the play is dead, that definitely should be out of the game. Every player on every team would tell you that's disrespectful."
The NHL puts greater weight on playoff games when it comes to suspensions (see Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Andrew Shaw's one game suspensions and none for Kris Letang after whacking Viktor Stalberg in the face with his stick) so any supplementary discipline to Schenn seems unlikely.
It is something to keep in mind for Game 5, however, as both the referees and the Caps will be watching to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Said Wilson, "We'll just use that as a little motivation to send those guys home."
Injury updates:
Wilson left Game 4 late in the third period after taking a hit up high from Philadelphia's Brandon Manning. He said Wednesday that he should be "good to go" for Friday.
When asked about Brooks Orpik, Trotz said, "We're going to skate tomorrow. I don't know if he'll skate or not at this point." He also mentioned that he thought Taylor Chorney played "great" in Game 4 in Orpik's place.
The Flyers tweeted Wednesday night that forward Scott Laughton was taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons, but that all tests had come back negative. Laughton had to be taken off the ice in a stretcher during the game after a scary looking fall into the boards.
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