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Ewwwwwww
. 

What… what happened?

I wrote yesterday that, at some point, there was going to be a karma backwash. You can only spend so many days trashing Sidney Crosby and the Penguins on every medium possible – TV, blogs, radio and newspapers – and expect to get away unscathed by the bitch that is karma.

But there’s no reason to panic. 

If before the series you would have said that the the Flyers would be heading back to Pittsburgh for Game 5 with a 3-1 series lead, any Flyers fan would be pleased. As Peter Laviolette told the Flyers after a loss to the Bruins (seen on 24/7): Let it go. Put it behind you. Move on.

Before we do, though, let’s take a look at some of the nonsense surrounding yesterday’s loss. 

– Zac Rinaldo had a bad day. He took a dumb penalty and received a game misconduct after stupidly cross-checking and punching Zbynek Michalek

He’ll likely be hearing from Brendan Shanahan’s arbitrary super-ego.  

Earlier in the day, pictures of Rinaldo posing, shirtless, in front of a hotel mirror, popped up on the interwebtuals (via Busted Coverage and 25 Stanley)… 

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Somewhere, a puck bunny slides closer to the screen and shuts her door.

Luckily for Zac, no pictures of Captain Winky worked their way into the mix. But, in the span of about four hours, Rinaldo had what were presumably intended to be private pictures leaked and likely got himself suspended. Fun.

– Notice all those penalties? Yeah, me too. Turns out officials warned both team before the game that things were going to be called closely. Jaromir Jagr explains:

Q: Did you expect them to call the game like that?

"They said that before the game. They said there was a circus the last three games and they were going to be in charge and call everything. They called both sides. There were so many penalties but we knew that they were going to call like that. The Penguins learned very quickly. They took two penalties five minutes into the game and then we got a bad penalty." 

 

Unfortunately, after the early calls turned the game into a friendly match, the Flyers (and the crowd) lost all energy, allowing the Penguins to pile on after taking a 5-3 lead early in the second period. 

– That karma backwash thing I mentioned. We were all guilty of it. But this is what I was talking about.

Before the game at Xfinity Live!: [via reader Victoria]

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More #kidsagainstcrosby. Aubrey via father JD:

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And this shirt: via (@DC0LLINS

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Let’s just lay low until tomorrow night, Philadelphia.