Flyers' Carcillo injects some nasty into Game 2

It was obvious Flyers coach Peter Laviolette wanted to crank up the grit and nasty in his team's game Monday night by dressing Daniel Carcillo.

There was definitely an edge to the first period thanks to Carcillo, who yapped his way through the first 20 minutes, jawing at Hawks winger Tomas Kopecky on several occasions, the referees after he was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and at Adam Burish on the Blackhawks' bench.

Carcillo also delivered one of the biggest hits of the first period - when he drilled teammate Jeff Carter. Carcillo lined up Kopecky in the neutral zone only to have the Hawks' winger step aside, thus the collision that sent Carter hard to the ice.

"Your first big hit of the year," the NBC microphones picked up Burish saying.

Laviolette's decision to dress Carcillo was at least partly in response to Burish's hit on Flyers defenseman Lukas Krajicek in Game 1 that Laviolette felt was dirty.

Burish welcomed the presence of Carcillo in Game 2.

"Bring it on," Burish said. "It's a another guy with long hair and another guy with a scraggly beard, I guess, in their lineup. It doesn't change anything for me.

"I don't care who they play. I don't care who they play against our line and I don't care what they try to do against our group of guys. That doesn't matter one bit to us."

Carcillo hadn't played since Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against Montreal when he lost his spot in the lineup because of Carter's return from a knee injury.

Carcillo finished with 207 penalty minutes during the regular season and once had 324 for Phoenix in 2007-08.

"I want to be physical, bring some energy and get the guys going," Carcillo said. "This is a tough building to play in. Last game we kind of got away from the physicality."

The Flyers certainly weren't looking for Carcillo to help them play better defensively.

"He definitely brings a lot of energy to the team," said Flyers teammate Simon Gagne. "The first game was not very physical on both sides."

Laviolette pointed out before the game seeing a statistic where Carcillo draws more penalties that he takes.

"I believe he finished top three in penalties that he draws as opposed to the penalties he takes," Laviolette said. "It was like a plus-25 rating."