The Florida Panthers Won't Stop Being Scumbags Anytime Soon

Is there a sports team in America dirtier than the Florida Panthers?

They are good, no doubt. You don’t win back-to-back Stanley Cups by accident, not in today's NHL. Their roster is insane too: when healthy, the top lines include some combination of Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennet, Aleksander Barkov, Carter Verhague, Brad Marchand, and Matthew Tkachuk.

That is an embarrassment of riches.

But you know what they have more than just talent on their team? The knack for acting like scumbags.

Every team in the NHL has one guy that crosses the line far too often with his physical play. The Panthers seemingly have about four that regularly cross the line (Tkachuk being the most frequent offender), and the guys who keep their sheets relatively clean still find ways to continue the work of the bullies.

Friday night was the latest example. In an overtime matchup with the Carolina Hurricanes, Evan Rodrigues went for a poke check on Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis. I say "poke check" loosely; it was actually a full-blown swipe that upended Jarvis and sent him crashing hard into the post.

According to Carolina, Jarvis (one of their best forwards) will be out "for a while." 

Players get tripped all the time and crash hard into things even with no ill-intent on the defender. But this play definitely warrants scrutiny.

Rodrigues took a wide angle on his defense, supposedly to meet Jarvis before he got into a good shooting position. A poke check here would have been nothing unusual, but that’s not what Rodrigues did. The swipe was far more aggressive than a normal stick check, and it looked like he barely made an honest attempt at the puck.

At the very least, that should have been a tripping penalty. At worst, it’s a malicious act that warrants a suspension.

Either way, it proves yet again that no one on the Panthers is above being a scumbag that enjoys hurting opposing players.