The Flyers put Dan Carcillo into the lineup to try and give the team a bit of a different edge, some attitude and some energy after the Flyers got away from what they do best in Game 1. After coming out of the gates with his hockey pants on fire, Carcillo spent most of the game not making much of a difference after all.
Carcillo stated before the game that he was ready to come out, be energetic and basically cause problems for the Blackhawks and that’s exactly what he set out to do. Unfortunately, he ended up taking things a bit too far. While trying to lay out a bone-crunching hit on Tomas Kopecky, he accidentally took out his own teammate. Observe:
Carcillo finished with 11:04 of ice time, three shots on goal and just two registered hits. He certainly made the Blackhawks focus on him in the first period, but was ultimately not the big difference maker some thought he might be before the game started.
All of the focus before the game was what kind of impact Carcillo would have now that he was back on ice, and aside from just throwing his body around for a couple of raucous shifts in the first period he was largely invisible for most of the game.
Carcillo certainly didn’t have a bad game, but perhaps the hype leading up to his return was a bit overblown. Still, without Carcillo’s return we wouldn’t have gotten the great play we see above.