The Flyers-Canadiens series has suddenly become nasty | Sam Carchidi

The Stanley Cup playoffs breed hate among opponents. Cheap shots are common. So are scrums. And chirping is taken to another level.

The Flyers-Canadiens series in Toronto was slow to develop that animosity, and the fact that there are no fans in Scotiabank Arena probably had a lot to do with it.

Fans fuel the players’ emotions. In a sterile setting, however, that emotion was sometimes missing.

Oh, the players on both sides have been playing hard since Game 1, but the series just didn’t have that old-time playoff feel to it.

Until Game 5 on Wednesday.

Now, as we head into Friday’s intriguing matchup, with the top-seeded Flyers holding a suddenly precarious 3-2 series lead against the upstart Canadiens, these teams like each other as much as Trump and Biden.

“There’s no doubt there’s no love between both teams,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said Thursday.

In eighth-seeded Montreal’s 5-3, staying-alive win Wednesday, both subtle and not-so-subtle messages were sent by each team, along with a handful of scrums that probably would have escalated into a brawl if fans were there to incite the participants.

There was Montreal’s Nick Suzuki, 21, mockingly giving Flyers goalie Carter Hart a pat on the head after he allowed a soft goal to Joel Armia. Suzuki said it was just a “reaction” and he didn’t mean to show up Hart, but to the Flyers and their fans, it was like he was saying: “You think you’re hot stuff and you allowed that goal?”

“That’s just immaturity,” Flyers center Kevin Hayes said. “I’m not really sure what he was thinking. It’s just uncalled for.”

There was Flyers defenseman Matt Niskanen sending a hunched-over-Brendan Gallagher to the dentist with a stick to his mouth. With a straight face, Vigneault said it wasn’t Niskanen’s fault that Gallagher “might not be as tall as some of the other guys” and that it was “just a hockey play.”

There was the Canadiens’ Jesperi Kotkaniemi boarding Travis Sanheim and leaving him bleeding near his right eye. The coaches, Vigneault and Montreal’s Kirk Muller, saw the hit differently. Guess who called it a “blow toward the head” and which one called it “a hockey play.”

This series has gotten serious, folks.

The Flyers, even with Niskanen suspended for a game, are still in the driver’s seat. But if they lose and have to face a Game 7 against Carey Price, well, the pendulum would stunningly sway in the Canadiens’ favor.

The Flyers got off to a slow start Wednesday and didn’t allow Montreal time to even think about facing elimination. The Habs, coming off consecutive shutout losses, scored less than three minutes into the game, alleviating the pressure that builds in a win-or-go-home contest.

That was a major problem, but not as bad as what transpired later, when the Flyers could have had the Canadiens on the ropes.

Midway through the second period, less than four minutes after the Flyers took a 2-1 lead on Jake Voracek’s second power-play goal of the night, Montreal tied the score on Armia’s cheapie. If the Habs don’t score for a while and find themselves in a one-goal hole and facing elimination, they probably start squeezing their sticks and taking unnecessary offensive chances that could have led to odd-man rushes for the Flyers.

Instead, the Canadiens had little time to feel they were in a getting-worse-by-the-minute predicament.

It happened again in the third period. Just 22 seconds after Joel Farabee tied the score at 3-all with the Flyers’ third power-play goal of the night, the head-patting Suzuki gave the Habs the lead for good with 9:01 left. The sequence began with a brutal turnover by Nate Thompson behind the goal line.

If the Canadiens don’t get that goal, they probably start feeling the heat, knowing that if the Flyers score next, there would be a good chance their season would be over.

Give the young Habs credit. They stared at adversity and, even without Kotkaniemi -- the valuable forward was given a major penalty and game misconduct and missed most of the last two periods – they never blinked.

“Every time we gained momentum from scoring a goal, we got scored on right away,” said Voracek, who literally jumped into a melee at the end of the game. “During the regular season, we usually carried the momentum into the next shift and kind of put the foot to the metal. They absolutely killed us with that. Kudos to them.”

In Game 6, the Flyers need to make the Canadiens feel the pressure of being in an elimination game, need to match the desperation the Habs displayed Wednesday as they outhit the Flyers (39-28) and had a big advantage in blocked shots ( 23-9).

“It’s Game 6. I think every game brings more intensity,” Hayes said. “It’s going to be a fun game, for sure.”

Hayes, who had seven shots and was the Flyers’ second-best player Wednesday, said the Canadiens’ “backs are against the wall. The intensity is going to be there. … Both teams need to win.”

The Flyers, seeking their first playoff-series win since 2012, need to take the approach that their backs are against the wall, need to play like it’s their most important game of the season, need to ratchet their urgency level.

If not, facing a Game 7 against Price does not seem appetizing.