MONTREAL - Philadelphia Flyers bad boy Dan Carcillo was feeling a couple of things after being hit with a four-game suspension for punching Washington Capitals' Matt Bradley.
Repentent wasn’t one of them.
Carcillo dropped his gloves and then dropped Bradley with a punch after Bradley had hit the Flyers’ winger with a bodycheck Saturday night. Carcillo crosschecked Bradley, poked him with a gloved hand, then dropped his gloves and punched Bradley in the face, knocking the Caps' forward to the ice.
Carcillo was slapped with minor penalties for cross-checking and instigating, the only fighting major, a misconduct and a game misconduct for the incident at 14:33 of the first period.
"When I grew up watching hockey, men were men and hockey was hockey. When you got the jump on a guy that’s what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to get the first one in," said Carcillo. "It was a clean hit, I thought. I just figured because he tried to take a run at me earlier that he would be ready to fight. I mean it’s not like he’s a guy that doesn’t fight. He leads his team in majors so I dropped my gloves, saw him drop his and I punched him. Maybe I got the jump on him but as a fighter you can’t wait."
Carcillo served the first game of his suspension Monday night, sitting out a game against the Montreal Canadiens.
It turned out to be a miserable debut for Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, who replaced John Stevens Friday.
"I wish that incident hadn’t happened; not that we didn’t fight, but we retaliated to start the incident," said Laviolette. "I talked to Dan about it. He’s been a very valuable part of this team and a good contributor and he’s really controlled his emotions and kept them in check. We’ll be counting on him and we’ll miss him in the lineup."
Carcillo said he thought the penalty didn’t fit the crime or his rap sheet.
"I’m not a dirty fighter. That was my first instigator in three years, over 60 fights. I think it’s a pretty stiff (suspension)," he said.
The only regret he had was putting his team in a bad situation. The Captials scored three power-play goals during the nine-minute man advantage on their way to an 8-2 win.
"Sitting in the room watching, I feel like I hung my team out to dry. I don’t feel good about that. Did I deserve nine minutes?" he wondered.
The NHL answered that question.
