There was no opportunity on Friday for the Flyers to try and avenge Ryan Poehling — still out with a head injury incurred on Max Tsyplakov’s hit that knocked him out of last Thursday’s match between the Flyers and Islanders — when the teams met in their first rematch since then.
At least in theory, the NHL took care of that by handing Tsyplakov a three-game suspension, the last of which was served Friday.
Tsyplakov, though, did not mind one bit the way the Flyers reacted in the moment, by taking a bad penalty and appearing distracted throughout the rest of the period before settling down to beat the Islanders 5-3 following an inexplicable loss of energy from the home side.
“So fun,” Tsyplakov told The Post after the Islanders skated Friday morning. “I think it’s the same as a playoff game, the reaction. A lot of hits. For not only me — all guys, all team be ready for this. Same as in a playoff game.”
The role of villain is not one Tsyplakov is used to playing.
He never dropped gloves while playing in the KHL and turned down the chance to do so after Garnet Hathaway asked him following the hit on Poehling, calling it “the first moment a guy wanted to fight with me.”
Given the physical style within which Tsyplakov operates, though — he’s second only to Casey Cizikas for the Islanders’ team lead in hits with 101 — it’s not shocking that something happened.
Asked about the play, Tsyplakov was clear there was no intent to injure.
But, like coach Patrick Roy, he was left confused by the sequence of events in which a hit ruled a major penalty on the ice was subsequently declared to not be worthy of a penalty at all before the league stepped in for a suspension.
“First after hit, I look for the ref and the ref [didn’t] have [his] hand up,” Tsyplakov said. “OK, let’s play next [shift]. After this moment, I go on the bench and look at this moment. I see it’s OK, it’s what the referee called. I think it’s all clean. But it’s a suspension.”
Nevertheless, Tsyplakov is trying to make the most of what amounts to a week off from playing games and give himself a bit of a reset.
“It’s time for rest,” he said. “Make a power comeback for 100 percent. And it’s a good moment for looking at the game from the outside, up [high]. All tactical, how the game plays. It’s good for just more rest.”
Tsyplakov, who’s accounted for 19 points in his first 44 games with strong analytics regardless of where he’s been in the lineup, has proven to be a solid contributor in his first season after making the leap from Russia.
With the Islanders carrying back-to-back wins into Friday, though, and all four lines clicking, it’s not immediately clear how the club will handle Tsyplakov’s re-entry into the fold on Saturday against Carolina.
Reading between the lines before Friday’s game, it sounded a lot like Roy was open to making Tsyplakov a healthy scratch in the name of keeping a good thing going if the Islanders kept winning against Philadelphia.
“I don’t have the answer to the question today,” Roy said. Tomorrow we’ll see, but as of now, you know what, the name of the game is winning hockey games. That’s the job of our guys to make those decisions difficult for us. The 12 players that were in the lineup that game [Monday] deserve to play tonight. If we win then we’ll have other decisions to make tomorrow.”