PHILADELPHIA — Hours after he ripped into Donald Sterling for the bombshell racial rants the Clippers owner made that got him banned from the NBA on Tuesday, Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds took his aggression out on the Rangers by notching a hat trick.
Simmonds, scoring three goals in the first two periods, laid wood to the Rangers in a 5-2 Flyers Game 6 blowout at the Wells Fargo Center that sends this schizophrenic, rhythm-less first-round playoff series back to Madison Square Garden for Game 7 on Wednesday night.
When Sterling’s mindless ignorance became public, his words hit Simmonds harder than a bone-jarring check into the boards. Simmonds, who is one of fewer than 30 black players currently playing in the NHL. He once had a banana peel thrown in his path by a racist heckler during a 2011 exhibition game game shootout against the Red Wings in Ontario.
“I’m kind of a fly in a bucket of milk here,’’ Simmonds said Tuesday. “There are not too many guys who are African-American playing in the league.
Asked if he was shocked to hear that kind of ignorant sentiment come from a team owner, Simmonds said, “Not really. I’d like to say yeah, but I’ve had enough things happen to me and seen a million things in this world that nothing shocks me right now.
“It’s really unfortunate, because we live in a world today where there should be no color. You should judge a person by their inside and not by the way that they look, by their appearance. It just sucks that’s the way it is right now.’’
Asked if he would have a problem playing for an owner like that, Simmonds said, “Definitely. One hundred percent.’’
Simmonds, who entered the game with only one goal in the series, was 100 percent the reason the Flyers lived to see a Game 7. He was all over the ice on Tuesday, giving the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 7:08 of the first period when he one-timed a Scott Hartnell pass behind Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist.
He made it 2-0 at 1:32 of the second period when he batted home a fanned shot by teammate Brayden Schenn, who had wrested the puck away from Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi at the blue line. Schenn’s attempted shot, to Lundqvist’s left trickled through the crease and Simmonds was there for the finish.
Simmonds scored his third at 15:19 of the second period when he redirected a Jakub Voracek shot from right in front of Lundqvist, whom he was screening — sending a rain storm of hats onto the rink from fans celebrating his hat trick.
“You’ve got to get pumped up for games like this,’’ Simmonds said. “It played out well for us and we continued our aggressiveness and took it with us for the rest of the game.’’
Flyers captain Claude Giroux praised Simmonds for being the catalyst.
“When Wayne wants to win a battle, he wins it and it gives everyone in the room a little motivation to do the same,’’ Giroux said.
“The last time I had a hat trick was last year in Carolina. It was my first NHL hat trick, and this was my first playoff hat trick,’’ Simmonds said.
He became just the second black player in NHL history to score a playoff hat trick.
“Honestly, that’s not something that was really on my mind,’’ Simmonds said. “I try not to think about things like that. We’re a team and we’re all the same color on the inside. We all have one common goal.’’