It was Kids day at the Rangers this afternoon, but you would never know it based on what was happening on the ice. As with all games against the Flyers, even the last place Flyers, there was a whiff of blood in the air as the game started . That whiff steadily increased with hard hits and fighting, and eventually several injuries. The Flyers today resembled the Broad Street Bullies of the seventies more than any group of European players. Even the Flyers own website describes their play as "physical." And all of the face painters and other kid events couldn't take away from the fact that threre were definitely enough adult males in the stands chanting a certain two syllable word to the referees and the Flyers that sounds sort of like "mass pole."
But although I think the fights and the physical play wore down the Rangers, the two serious injuries that occurred were both clean. Lundqvist hurt his shoulder when a puck hit it. And Brendan Shanahan collided with Mike Knuble. Knuble broke his orbit and will require surgery and Shanahan was taken off the ice in a stretcher with what sounds to me like a concussion, and taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. As of this writing I have no more information other than he is conscious and does not remember the event at all. After all of this, the Rangers started a long home stretch losing 5-3. Those playoffs are not looking likely.
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