"It's frustrating," the Flyers' captain said. "It's frustrating when you have momentum or you're starting to gain momentum and you're thrown back on your heels again from a penalty you don't need to take. Penalties where you're playing physical in your own end or you're trying to finish a guy or take away a scoring chance from them, OK. But it wasn't like that tonight. We were taking penalties away from the puck, away from the scoring angles. And when you do that, it just tires you out. You're blocking shots, pucks are hitting you, it tires you out.
"It's a lot harder playing defense than it is playing offense."
The Flyers were the most penalized team during the regular season. This put Richards on the ice for an amazing number of minutes, a number that has seemed to have extracted some attrition to his jump right now.
There's no way around it. The speed of the Penguins accentuates this, but the truth is that Richards has looked gassed for a while now. Or a little hurt. It's interesting that he brought up blocking pucks, and the toll it takes. Sometimes when he tries to accelerate up ice, he teeters for a second or 2, as if he's drawing on muscles that are no longer there, or incapacitated.
He has made some uncharacteristic lazy passes of late. He has made some decisions that suggest tired legs and a frustrated man. He has even worn that frustration at times. Just past the midpoint of the second period, Richards came down the right side and was easily measured by a Pens defenseman. He tried to fire it into the crease, but the puck was deflected instead into the netting above the glass.
When it landed, Richards whacked at it, uncharacteristically, in frustration.
