Grain of Saul: Crosby and the Penguins are sore losers

Being a New Jersey Devils fan from Philadelphia who lives in Pittsburgh and having to choose who… Being a New Jersey Devils fan from Philadelphia who lives in Pittsburgh and having to choose who to hate more — the Penguins or the Flyers — is one of the harder decisions I’ve had to make in my life.

But, as the Pittsburgh Penguins came undone on Sunday afternoon, the world got to watch Sidney Crosby turn into a full-fledged punk, and my decision got a whole lot easier.

Three games into the first-round playoff series, the Penguins have lost both the game and the fight three nights in a row against a scrappy, fiery Philadelphia Flyers team. But Sunday night, with an enormous hockey crowd watching, Crosby showed everyone outside of the Keystone State why he is either adored or despised between Ohio and New Jersey.

It started in the first period when, with eight minutes left and the Penguins down 3-1, Crosby took a few cheap shots on Flyers’ goalie Ilya Bryzgalov’s glove. Crosby, whose shot from behind the net got stuck, wound up and smacked Bryzgalov’s glove — hard — three times in a row before Flyers forward Claude Giroux wrapped him up and pulled him away.

Then, moments later, Crosby pushed away Jakub Voracek’s glove as the Flyers player bent down to pick it up. His instigation wasn’t over there. Crosby turned and grabbed an unsuspecting Kimmo Timonen — a Flyer who is well respected for not starting fights — and began throwing punches.

After the linesmen broke it up, Crosby’s cowardice was taken to a new level. With Timonen walking away, Crosby exchanged words with Giroux before grappling with the Flyers’ star — a rare moment where two of the best players in the world were caught in a physical altercation.

But, instead of fighting fair, Crosby waited until the linesmen (or as I call them, his bodyguards) stepped in to fire off a few uppercuts in Giroux’s direction.

He paused for a moment before Giroux went down with a referee hanging on him and then Crosby piled on top of a defenseless Giroux to hit him a few more times.

Crosby managed to do all of this in less than two minutes, and he was just getting started.

As the game progressed and the Flyers’ domination continued, the Penguins — specifically Crosby — played some of the most classless hockey I have ever seen.

When the third period rolled around, emotions erupted again, and the two teams left all inhibition at home in a series of scraps that showed the true hatred between them. Of course, Crosby — who has yet to drop his gloves face-to-face in this series — was behind it again.

After James Neal took a run at few Flyers, a scrum broke out where Crosby tied up Flyers rookie Brayden Schenn. As per usual, Crosby just held onto Schenn and took a few cheap shots where he could all while the referees continued to protect Crosby. But, the worst was yet to come.

As the announcer came over the loudspeaker, announcing the penalties distributed for the fights a moment earlier, Scott Hartnell, who had been exchanging pleasantries with Crosby during the earlier fight, began skating toward his own bench when Crosby wrapped him up from behind.

Hartnell appeared surprised and turned to see who was holding him when Crosby took a nice pull on Hartnell’s jersey, throwing him off balance and taking the two players into the boards. Then, Crosby held onto Hartnell from behind as teammate Craig Adams took a round of cheap shot haymakers on the back of Hartnell’s head.

After the game Hartnell had a pretty good understanding of what happened despite the attempted damage to his memory.

“Crosby comes in and grabs me from behind, and another guy comes and throws about eight bombs at the back of my head,” he said.

Of course, once Hartnell got to his feet, Crosby retreated to the protection of his bench and let Adams and Hartnell square up at center ice.

Then — not to my surprise — Adams initiated the fight with Hartnell by grabbing his long hair, much to the chagrin of the onlooking Flyers bench.

But when Hartnell returned to his feet, he simply encouraged the crowd to get excited by waving his arms up and down and reminding everyone in the stadium how the Flyers had been dismantling the Penguins on the ice.

This game, to me, was proof of a few things:

1) The Penguins simply don’t know how to lose (or win). After dropping two on their home ice and then losing again Philadelphia, they’ve shown that once they’re down, they’ll stoop to new lows in order to upset people or cause injuries.

2) Sidney Crosby is a joke. After returning from his concussion, the mega-star has been nothing more than one of those little rodents in a Whack-A-Mole arcade game. He pops up and starts trouble, then retreats to hide behind his friends when confronted. He either knows he has a glass chin and can’t take a punch from one of the Flyers’ tough guys, or this is just the way he acts when he can’t get it done on the ice.

3) This season, the Flyers are better than the Penguins in almost every way. I’ve heard people talk in Pittsburgh about how Bryzgalov is a bottom-15 goalie in the league. Well, Marc Andre Fleury has let up 18 goals in three games. Giroux has outplayed Crosby, and Hartnell has performed better than Malkin. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Flyers swept the series on Thursday night.

In the meantime, Penguin fans will have to wait anxiously for disciplinary hearings today before the two teams face off again Wednesday night. You can expect the Penguins to be short-handed and the Flyers faithful to be in full force on Wednesday. I’ll be rocking my orange and black.