Owen Tippett stood at his locker stall Monday night with a gash at the top of his nose, the blood at least no longer dripping from a late scuffle with the frustrated Penguins.
Tippett was banged up going into Game 2. He probably left it feeling no better.
But you wouldn’t have known it after the Flyers’ 3-0 win at PPG Paints Arena. Tippett was the same dynamic player on the ice and his mild-mannered self in the locker room.
His personality belies his toughness.
“This time of year, you have people banged up,” Rick Tocchet said Tuesday. “Both sides. I’m sure they do, too, and other teams. It’s really managing the guys that are banged up. Tip, he hasn’t skated much in practice. He has managed himself really, really well.”
Tippett didn’t practice Sunday. He was shaken up in the Flyers’ playoff clincher a little over a week ago. It’s uncertain what’s ailing the 27-year-old winger, but the Flyers have been monitoring his workload between games.
As the Flyers took a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven first-round playoff series with Pittsburgh, Tippett provided one of his spectacular highlights. With the Flyers on the penalty kill, he shrugged off and shimmied around a pair of Penguins to set up Garnet Hathaway’s shorthanded goal.
“He’s such a threat,” Hathaway said Monday night. “Speed, hands, shot. I just had to get open.”
The determined effort extended the Flyers’ advantage to 2-0 in the second period.
“He has got that home run ability,” Tocchet said. … “He gets a step on a guy or he makes a terrific play on that shorthanded goal. You get that guy that can hit the home run when it’s a neutral game or a game that nothing’s really happening. He has that ability to break the game open for us.”
Tippett led the Flyers with 28 goals in the regular season. Three came on the power play and three at shorthanded. Down the stretch, Tippett “had to drive some lines himself,” Tocchet said in March.
“It’s dangerous when he recognized how powerful he can be and the impact he makes in games,” Travis Konecny said Monday night. … “He’s just one of those guys that can kind of do everything — he’s a big guy, he has got the hands, he has got the speed. He’s a big piece of this team, for sure.”
With 1:47 minutes left in Game 2, Tippett took a couple of upper-cut punches from Anthony Mantha. It wasn’t a fight and Tippett didn’t retaliate. Manta was given a misconduct.
Tippett appeared unfazed. He had seven hits on the night and that great assist.
His team was headed home with another win.
