Claude Giroux: “(10-3 Loss To Penguins) Not Gonna Happen Again”

Entering Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, you figured Claude Giroux was due for something. Something great.  Something scintillating.  Something justifying the “Next Bobby Clarke” tag some people in this city are all to eager to drape all over him.

(Flyers beat reporter Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) joined the Sports Bash with Mike Gill to talk more about game five and the rest of the Flyers/Penguins Series.)

What you didn’t? Not so much the 10-3 loss to Pittsburgh, to keep the series alive and give the Penguins an ember of hope.

(Which, for record, and I’m getting this out now, nice and early in the post, to save you the trouble of wasting angry keyboard strokes and angrier mouse clicks, will be stomped out like the grapes by a certain, cheating, grape-squishing TV broadcaster. And have the wind knocked out of it, too.)

And not even his unforgivable two-minute high-sticking minor penalty just 2:51 into the second period, which, yeah, not only gave the team back-to-back shorthanded situations (and just 51 seconds to breathe) and Chris Letang a deflating power play goal to put the Penguins up, 5-3, and Sergei Bobrovsky in the game (because, obvi, Peter Laviolette had to save what thinning slivers of confidence and sanity still lay within Ilya Bryzgalov), but epitomized the resounding lack of leadership from anybody — ANYBODY! — donning the Orange and Black, what’s supposed to be less a color scheme than a corporate slogan, Wednesday night.

No, no — what we didn’t see coming? A Tim Tebow moment.

That’s right. Tim. Freaking. Tebow.

Not on Broadway. (Though that kind of surprised, too.) On Broad Street.

Bonkers.

Said Giroux:

“Yeah. We lost 10-3 in front of our fans. Obviously, we’re embarrassed.

“Obviously, we apologize to our fans. But we’ll tell you one thing, it’s not gonna happen again.”

BAM! There you have it, Flyer fans. The dawn breaking the night, the spoken word shattering the silence, the heel throwing itself back on the little birdy necks of the little birdy Penguins.

Your conquering hero, channeling his best Tebow (First) Time moxie, and doing so now.

Enjoy Game 5, Pittsburgh. Enjoy.

(This article was written by Matt Hammond, you can reach him at matthammond89@gmail.com)