Late Sunday night, NBC's John Clark mentioned a Buffalo News report that Sabres forward Patrick Kaleta had plenty to say on the ice in Sunday's game, which isn't much of a surprise considering Kaleta's hard-earned repuation as a jackass. Buffalo News' Jerry Sullivan mentioned the exchanges in a column he wrote after the game about how the former Sabre Briere's leadership contributed to the Flyers huge win to even the series. Sullivan relays some intel from a Flyers source that Kaleta's trash talk focused on Briere's and Scott Hartnell's off-season divorces.
From the Buffalo News column:
Briere had been emotionally charged up, and more than a little angry, since early in the game. "Honestly, one of their young guys said something to me that was personal and crossed the line," the former Sabre said. "It got me fired up a little bit more than it usually does. That was probably a big part of it."
A Flyers source said Patrick Kaleta made comments to Briere and teammate Scott Hartnell about their divorces early in the Flyers' 5-4 overtime victory, which evened the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series at three games apiece.
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Now, I assume the players are regularly saying all that and then some out there, but apparently whatever Kaleta said fired Danny up quite a bit, and he made it part of a locker room speech in the second intermission.
Considering Briere scored a pair of goals (his fourth and fifth of the series) and Hartnell added a game-tying goal and an assist, Kaleta may want to work on some new material.