The New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers are not two teams that like each other very much. The bad blood was back on Saturday night in the Islanders’ 5-2 win over the Flyers, as we witnessed a scrum late in the third period.
With just over three minutes to play in the contest, New York Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov lined up Philadelphia Flyers forward Kevin Hayes just inside the New York’s blue line.
The hit was not dirty by any means, but Flyers forward Nick Deslauriers took exception as he jumped Romanov, leading to a scrum. Scott Mayfield immediately went in to defend Romanov, while Oliver Wahlstrom went at it with Tony DeAngelo.
Here’s the play in its entirety:
Romanov was not given a penalty on the play, while Deslauriers received two minutes for roughing and a 10-min misconduct. Scott Mayfield immediately came to Romanov’s defense and had the same fate as Deslauriers, penalty-wise.
Wahlstrom and DeAngelo each got five for fighting, while Rasmus Ristolainen, Zack MacEwen, and Matt Martin received two minutes for roughing to cap off the penalty-filled incident.
NYI Hockey Now caught up with Alexander Romanov and Scott Mayfield following Monday’s practice to get their take on what transpired.
“I don’t know why guys doesn’t like clean hits now,” Romanov said. “Hockey has changed. Like 10 years, 15 years ago, like, it wasn’t even [big] hit. It wasn’t even big hit. That’s hilarious, you know. For me, it’s just fine because guys dropped the gloves after this. Like it’s not even hit.”
Seeing his teammates come to his defense meant a lot to the first-year New York Islander.
“Yeah, it means so much for me,” Romanov said. “I’m not like a fighter, a big fighter, you know. And when guys was protecting me, it was so good. Yeah, I love it.”
With the loss Saturday, the Flyers losing streak reached 10 games, as they are clearly a team struggling. Mayfield said that certainly played a part.
“They’re on a little bit of a losing streak, I think, and, you know, they’re down in that game,” Mayfield said. “And there’s, I wouldn’t call it a big hit, but there was a hit, I guess. And, you know, that’s part of hockey. So [it] kind of turned into a little scrum, and, you know, we like to play that physical game. I think they’d like to play that physical games. And that’s part of it.”
With how physical that game was, along with the scrum, there were some thoughts that Ross Johnston might get into the lineup when these two teams face off again Tuesday night.
The Islanders did run lines at practice, but Johnston remained as an extra.
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New York Islanders head coach Lane Lambert was asked if he thinks that there will be any carry-over from Saturday night’s affair.
“I don’t think so. I mean, we’re two, like I said, there were two hard teams that battle hard,” Lambert said. “I thought it was a hard-fought game, and we expect the same thing tomorrow night, and we’re going in there trying to get two points.”
