As basically everyone else, Kimmo Timonen expected the first round playoff series against the Penguins to be tough, so after three hard fought games, he’s not too surprised.
“All three games have been tough, I guess it’s playoff hockey. Now we rest a couple days and go at it again.”
Timonen himself fought in Game 3, something he doesn’t remember doing that often.
“I feel a little beaten up, but it’s part of the game. I don’t remember the last time I’ve been thrown out in the first period. Sometimes you have to give and take some hits. That was the moment when you had to try and do something. It certainly wasn’t my kind of game.”
“We do everything to win and that fight was one part of the game. At least I got a little rest after that.”
Timonen ended up fighting with Kris Letang after letting Sidney Crosby know how he felt about the Penguins captain’s behavior. Timonen says there seems to be a difference between the regular season Penguins and the playoff Penguins.
“I don’t understand what Crosby is trying to do out there, but he’s not doing anything by himself. Everyone defends him. And it’s not just Crosby. The whole team plays differently compared to regular season. I don’t understand why you have to change your game for the playoffs. I understand playing hard. The guys who play hard [in the regular season], play hard now, too. But I don’t understand why the guys who don’t play tough and dirty [in the regular season], do that now. I don’t understand why they have to slash on the legs with their sticks. They’re not playing their system and it’s not working out for them. We’re up 3-0.”
In general, Timonen says you can notice the same thing going on around the league.
“It seems like the other series are different too compared to how it used to be. The game is a lot tougher and there are more dirty tricks out there nowadays.”
After a couple goal fests, it’s obvious that goal scoring isn’t the problem for the Flyers.
“We’ve been a good team all season long and we can score goals. Our special teams have worked well. Our problem is that we allow too many goals. We can’t keep letting four goals in every game. We have to do better than that. Usually if you keep allowing four goals a game in the playoffs, you won’t win, but Pittsburgh is allowing even more.”
Flyers have the chance to end the series already in their next game and that’s exactly what Timonen wants to do.
“We have the mindset of going out there and win. But it’s going to be a new game again. I doubt they want to lose in four games. We just need to play tighter as a team and we’ll get that win. We’re more disciplined and they take some dumb penalties.”
This report was based off of Finnish-language interviews released by YLE/STT.
