Philadelphia Flyers vs. The NHL

Riley Cote, come on down! Your our next contestant on the NHL's hit new game show, Suspendee of the week!

It's pretty evident that the League seems to have an out for the Flyers. The latest victim to suspension, enforcer Riley Cote. Late in the 3rd of Philly's 4-1 loss to Dallas Saturday night, Cote punished a member of the Stars with a check/elbow to the head.

Ok. The hit was unnecessary. The elbow, questionable. But a three game suspension for a frustration hit? Clearly, and I say this in the most unbiased way possible, the league is making an example out of the Flyers.

With the suspension to Cote, the 5th Flyer to be suspended this year, the league also issued a formal warning that if another incident occurred, further disciplinary action will be taken.

Fast forward to tonight's game In Minnesota. Before the first two minutes ticked off the game clock, the Fly guys found themselves two men down on the penalty kill.
When the league said further disciplinary action would be taken, I think they failed to mention that they were going to literally hand out power plays to future opposing teams.

While on that 5-on-3 power play, the Wild "scored" a goal.
Niittymaki went down to the butterfly to make a save, but the shooter threw his hands up in celebration as the goal light went on, than off, than the referee signaled goal after thinking about it for a few seconds. So the tally goes in the books and its 1-0 Minnesota.
...Upon further review...
The goal was looked at upstairs in the center before Toronto's war room took the call and reviewed further. Once they showed the play for the fans at home, I was astonished. You could clearly see the back of the net.. puckless. Niitty had the puck underneath him, at least a foot from the goal crease. How could you possible make that mistake?!

There is no one on this earth that can tell me that huge mistake of a goal call was not made on purpose.

The Flyers managed to kill off that 5-on-3 as well as the other 2 man advantage that the Wild had in the game. In total, there were 9 Philly minors, 18 minutes of penalty kill total. I am willing to bet that 3 of them were legitimate. The other 6? Well, they may have been foul shots for the Sixers opponent, also in action tonight. I'll leave it at that.

The Wild on the other hand, took a nearly immaculate 3 penalties. One of those penalties was awarded to former Flyer Todd Fedoruk, who warned Philly that "they better have eyes in the back of their heads, because he was coming." His penalty, for the hit on Lupul, was worthy of league review, in my opinion (which, doesn't mean much I guess). Fedoruk boarded Lupul in a way that had it been reverse roles.. Let me just say that Lupul would have been the next game show contestant.

At the end of regulation, the Flyers prevailed, 3-1, killing off 8 of 9 penalties and holding the lead for the entire game. With the win, Philly moves to a three way tie for the Atlantic Division, along with NY Rangers and NJ Devils.

So in the ongoing battle of Philly versus the National Hockey League, score a win for Philly tonight. But the road ahead seems steep. And rocky. And heavily guarded by men in zebra outfits.