PHILADELPHIA -- It's not as if the rivalry between the Penguins and Philadelphia had been down a quart or two of ill will.
No one on either side had noted a shortage of raw emotion or a lack of hard feelings.
But whether it was needed or not, the rivalry got a 214-pound infusion of nastiness last night when Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger faced the Penguins for the first time since being acquired from Anaheim in the offseason.
Pronger, long one of the game's top two-way defensemen, can be a punishing physical presence, and the Penguins realized it was in their interest to be aware of his whereabouts any time he was on the ice at the Wachovia Center.
"He's a big addition for them," said center Sidney Crosby, who was on the same squad as Pronger at Canada's pre-Olympic camp in Calgary this summer. "He's going to play hard, and I'm going to play hard.
"That's the way it is when you play these games. Whoever is there, these teams play hard against each other."
Although Pronger has spent most of his career in the Western Conference, he seems to have a good working knowledge of the Penguins-Flyers rivalry.
"That was obviously one of the first things that was brought up [when he joined the Flyers]," he said.
"You play a team two years in a row in the playoffs, you start to build a pretty good hate for one another and a good rivalry.
"Obviously, both teams being in Pennsylvania, it kind of makes perfect sense."
At least one Penguins player had a performance to remember on what was otherwise a night to forget for them Wednesday.
They lost to Phoenix, 3-0, at Mellon Arena in their worst regular-season performance in Bylsma's tenure as coach and were outplayed in virtually every facet of the game.
Center Jordan Staal, however, managed to go 12-1 on faceoffs, a success rate of 92 percent.
"I knew I had most of the guys beat," he said yesterday. "I wasn't sure of the percentage."
Staal went on to shrug it off as "just a good night" and, with a smile, suggested that "I don't think I'll have a 92 by the end of the year."
The Penguins entered the game last night with a penalty-killing success rate of 78.9 percent, good for 14th place in the league rankings.
Those are pretty lackluster numbers, and the Penguins also struggled while shorthanded during the preseason.
Nonetheless, coach Dan Bylsma made it clear that he is not terribly concerned about how the Penguins have performed when down a man.
"I certainly don't like the [statistics] -- I don't like losing the special-teams battle -- but, all in all, I think our penalty-kill has probably been the closest [facet of their game] to what we're expecting it to look like," he said.
"The numbers are one thing, but I think the way we've played aggressively and done the right things and executed our game plan, the penalty-kill has been good.
"Hopefully, the numbers change."
The Penguins scratched winger Chris Bourque and defenseman Martin Skoula last night. ... The Penguins won't have to contend with Toronto goalie Jonas "The Monster" Gustavsson when they visit Toronto tomorrow. He has been placed on injured-reserve because of a groin injury. ... Penguins winger Chris Kunitz, on whether he would expect Pronger, a former teammate in Anaheim, to resist the urge to hit him hard: "I don't think so. You don't expect anybody to cut you any breaks."
First Published: October 9, 2009, 8:00 a.m.
