Recchi was following Martin Havlát of the Senators when he crossed into the Philadelphia defensive zone. As this happened, Recchi hooked Havlat, causing both of the players to collide and fall into the boards. When Havlat got up from the ice, angered by Recchi's hook, he took his stick above him and slashed Recchi, hitting him in the face. Havlat was given a five-minute major penalty for attempting to injure Recchi and a game misconduct penalty. He was later given a two-game suspension by the NHL due to the incident. As a repeat offender, he was forced to give up US$36,585.36 of his salary as he had already been suspended for kicking Eric Cairns of the New York Islanders earlier in the season. Revenge was mentioned after the game by Flyers Head Coach Ken Hitchcock. During a post-game interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), he commented that "someday, someone's going to make him eat his lunch. This is something, in my opinion, that the players should take care of." Recchi also mentioned revenge, not specifically from the Flyers, during an interview with the CBC. "It doesn't surprise me coming from this guy. He's that type of player. He's done it before. It might not come from our team. But he better protect himself," said Recchi. Game summary Despite having what Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press described as "bad blood" between them, the first period of the game passed without serious incident. Chris Neil opened the scoring for Ottawa just over four minutes into the period, but the Flyers then took the lead when Claude Lapointe and Mark Recchi scored 30 seconds apart. Danny Markov added a third for Philadelphia to give them a two-goal lead. The only penalty assessed in the period was for holding against Philadelphia's Tony Amonte, who was appearing in his 1,000th NHL game. Both teams scored a goal each in the second and third periods. In the second period, an early tripping penalty against Ottawa's Mike Fisher put the Flyers on the power play, during which Kim Johnsson extended Philadelphia's lead to 4–1. Ottawa received another penalty less than a minute later, which sent Todd Simpson to the penalty box for holding. A Flyers penalty against Radovan Somík for slashing Martin Havlat resulted in a power play goal for the Senators' Zdeno Chára, closing the score to a two-goal gap once again. Fisher subsequently