Hold off on that crash cart.
The Pittsburgh enguins had a great chance to virtually bury the Philadelphia Flyers yesterday afternoon in their nationally-televised game 3 clash.
Put the Flyers in a 3-0 hole, and the only question that would have remained is when this week the Flyers should set their tee time.
Insetad of pushing Philadelphia to the brink, the Penguins played their worst game of the series.
In falling 6-3 to the Flyers yesterday, Pittsburgh doesn't have to look too hard to figure out what cost them the game.
Missed defensive coverages.
An off-day by their goaltender.
A killer shorthanded goal.
All of those things and more contributed to the latest chapter in what now, with Philadelphia's victory, is a true series.
The Penguins did a great job from the drop of the puck for the first few minutes. They outhit Philadelphia early and didn't allow the crowd to give the Flyers any momentum.
At the 3 minute mark, that went out the window.
The Flyers rushed into the Penguins zone on a 4-on-3 that quickly ended up with Flyers' leading goal-scorer Jeff Carter toe dragging the puck around RW Bill Guerin and driving hard down the slot all alone. Pittsburgh defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who had been preoccupied trying to cover Philadelphia LW Scott Hartnell, dropped off of him and went down a bit right in front of -- and just momentarily obsuring the view of -- Penguins' netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. That gave Carter the half second he needed to deke to the backhand at full speed before Fleury could stay with him and bury it on the Flyers' first shot of the game to give the Flyers an early 1-0 lead and get the crowd rocking.
About 2 minutes later, Flyers' center and Captain Mike Richards upped the Philadelphia lead to 2-0 on the power play by throwing thier second shot at a bad angle off of something and through Fleury's legs from just above the goal line on the far boards. I still don't know what the puck hit because of NBC's decision to show that power play from their high-up, end-of-the-rink cam, and the replays don't clearly show what the puck hit either. It may have been Pens' defenseman Hal Gill. Whatever it hit, it wasn't a Flyer, because Richards got credit for the goal.
Just 90 seconds later, Pens' LW Chris Kuntiz steamrolled Flyer' defenseman Kimmo Timonen who was coming around from behind his own net and had his head down with a highlight reel -- but clearly clean -- hit. That blow was not unlike the kind that former Penguin' RW Colby Armstrong liked to make on the forecheck. In the fracas that obviously ensued afterwards at the Flyers' initiation, the Penguins got no man-advantage, despite two cross-checks on Kunitz from Philadelphia defenseman Ryan Parent right after the hit, and then several whacks on him from Hartnell as they skated up the ice before the two of them threw down.
No doubt -- some home-cooking for Philadelphia there.
After that, the Penguins' settled down a bit and, while it looked like they were going to go into the intermission with a 2-0 deficit, Evgeni Malkin halved the Flyers' lead when he took a pass at the far circle from LW Ruslan Fedotenko in the opposite corner and wristed the puck between Philadelphia goaltender Martin Biron's legs for the first Penguin goal 13 seconds before the frame expired.
Penguins' Center Max Talbot made the play happen by making a big hit on the forecheck that freed up the puck for Fedotenko to make the pass.
Malkin's tally had to be a huge boost for Pittsbugh going into the locker room because they came out for the 2nd period and tied the game about 12 seconds in on a point shot from defenseman Rob Scuderi.
That was Scuderi's first career playoff goal, with Crosby and Kunitz assisting.
At this point, it looked like the Penguins had the Flyers where they wanted them.
They withstood the early rush of momentum and had successfully stemmed the tide. If they could have locked into their game at that point, this story may have been written differently.
Instead, the Penguins' picked a bad time to have easily their 2 biggest lapses of the series in a 4 minute span.
The first time it happened was when the Flyers were heading into the Penguins' zone on a 3-on-3 rush that Pittsburgh had covered all the way up the ice. Flyers' LW Darrell Powe carried the puck into the zone and shot the puck on goal. Fleury kicked out the rebound about 5/10 feet in the direction of Flyers' RW Daniel Briere.
Briere was covered by Penguins' defenseman Brooks Orpik but for some reason Pens' center Jordan Staal, who had been following Flyers' center Claude Giroux all the way up the ice, decided to go in that direction too -- likely thinking he could get to the puck.
Unfortunately, that was the wrong decision.
Briere beat Staal (and Orpik) to the biscuit and did the only thing he could have with it, which was feed the wide open Giroux for an easy empty-netter behind Fleury.
Staal was obviously trying to do too much, and he knew he made a bad decision there because he slammed his stick on the boards behind Fleury in disgust when he saw that it was his man -- Giroux -- who scored the goal.
That goal wasn't nearly as bad for the Penguins as what happened when the Penguins' were on a power play at nearly the 8 minute mark, and Giroux again was at the center of the play for Phialdelphia.
Giroux, while on the forecheck, put a hit on Gonchar behidn the Penguin goal and took the puck away. Pens' defenseman Kris Letang arrived on the scene next and since Giroux didn't have any immediate help, the play looked innocuous enough.
Then Gonchar and Letang eased up a bit and gave Giroux a chance to circle back behind the net wtih Letang chasing, fool Gonchar -- who had stopped at the other side of the goal -- just enough with the direction he was going with the puck, and find Philadelphia RW Simon Gagne steaming towards the Penguins net with a pass for another easy goal behind Fleury.
The fact is, that pass should have never gotten through in the first place. If Gonchar didn't seal it off, Fleury should have cut it off with his stick. It sure went close enough to him to do that.
With that shorthanded tally, the Flyer crowd went nuts. Philadelphia led the league in shorthanded goals this season and it probably was only a matter of time before they scored one in this series, but the way they did it this time was inexcusable for Pittsburgh -- in my opinion.
The period finished with the Flyers leading 4-2 and things didn't get better for the Penguins to start the 3rd period when Philadelphia rookie Jared Ross scored by squeezing the puck under Fleury's arm on a rebound after being basically left alone by 3 Penguin players.
That goal upped the Philadelphia lead to 5-2 and pretty much gave the Flyers control of the game for good.
Malkin scored again on a power play at the 8 minute mark to give the Penguins' another pulse, and they had a few chances again the rest of the way -- including one by RW Petr Sykora, who also had a good chance eariler in the game but continued to come up snakebitten -- but couldn't finish, and Gagne sealed the game with an empty net goal to make the final 6-3 Philadelphia.
The Penguins' were outhit by Philadelphia for the first time in the series, 29-18. Biron stopped 26 of 29 shots in the victory, while Fleury stopped only 25 of 30 shots for the Penguins.
For the Flyers, they had to be happy to see their big guns, Carter and Richards, start scoring. Their 3rd and 4th lines outplayed those of the Penguins in this one, too. Staal was -3 in the game.
Another big factor in the Penguin loss was a power play that came up just 1-for-7. Pittsburgh has to do better with its man-advantage if it wants to get back on track in this series.
The tough part in this one for the Penguins is that Philadelphia didn't play the greatest defensive game. In other words, I think they were there for the taking in this one, despite the support they had from being at home in front of their own crowd. Unfortunately, the Penguins couldn't take advantage of that and made more mistakes of their own.
Clearly, the Penguins' were not on top of their game yesterday. Pens' radio color man Phil Bourque said after the game that the score wasn't indicative of the play. I disagree. Pittsburgh wasn't good out there with the puck and they were extremely sloppy with their coverages. Do that to a good scoring team like the Flyers and you're going to get burned.
One thing is for sure -- the Penguins' have no reason not to come out and play their best game on Thursday. They'll be looking to bounce back and I'm anxious to see how they do that. That's what a playoff series is all about. You stem losses by immediately getting back out there in the next contest and playing your best game t0-date. The Penguins know they were subpar in this one and I'd be surprised if they didn't bounce back. They've had too much mojo the last 2 months not to do that. It will be interesting to watch their response on Tuesday night.
The Penguins still have the upper hand in this series and a win in game 4 will give them a road split in Philadlphia and send them back home with a chance to finish the Flyers off.
I think if you asked the Penguin players coming in if they would take that, they'd say yes.
So would I.
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