It must have been tough to be in the visitor's dressing room at Mellon Arena on Wednesday night following the Penguins' 4-1 beating of the Philadelphia Flyers in game 1.
And not just because the room is old and cramped.
If it was bad Wednesday, I can't imagine how it must have felt last night after Pens' RW Bill Guerin delivered a 2-0 series lead to Pittsburgh by scoring on a 5-on-3 power play to win the game for the Penguins in overtime, 3-2.
The Flyers were a much improved outfit overall in game 2. They skated better, made less mistakes, and had more emotion.
And it still wasn't enough.
The Flyers actually led on 2 occassions in this one, initally thanks to a power play goal on a deflection by carrot-top (Scott Hartnell) in the first period that opened the scoring then, after Guerin got his first of the night by finishing off a nice 3-on-2 rush with Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby by beating Flyers' netminder Martin Biron short side, on a goal by new 3rd liner and no-name Darrell Powe early in the 3rd period.
Then, Marc-Andre Fleury stepped up with the save of the playoffs so far, preserving the game for Pittsburgh.
Fleury was pretty sharp the whole game (Powe's goal -- which I'm sure he'd like to have back -- notwithstanding), but he saved his best for when it was needed most.
A little less than halfway through the final frame, Jeff Carter had a wide-open net to Fleury's right with #29 a little out of position, but when the NHL's second leading scorer this season shot the puck, Fleury flashed out his right pad at the last second and just caught a piece of the puck with his skate before it crossed the goal line.
Incredible.
Fabulous.
Outstanding even.
Then, with time winding down in the final frame and Philadelphia trying to protect their 2-1 lead, Penguins' center Jordan Staal did what he's been doing so well the last few months. He went to work down low in the Flyers zone and, ironically, drew a penalty against Carter after getting a half step on him.
With about 3 and 1/2 minutes to go on the resulting power play, defenseman Kris Letang ripped a shot from about 45 feet that first deflected off the skate of Flyers defenseman Brandon Coburn, then hit Malkin before going behind Biron to tie the score.
In overtime, the play was fairly close to the vest, but the Penguins' were getting the better of the chances overall. Then, the Flyers got a power play with about 3 minutes to go on what was a pretty weak call on Penguins' defenseman Brooks Orpik for cross-checking. However, the Penguins' did a great job killing that penalty. The Flyers hardly had a chance to set up in the Pens' zone and, when they did with about 30 seconds left in the man-advantage, the Flyers couldn't resist having flashbacks. They reverted to their undisciplined ways and Mike Knuble cross-checked Orpik right in front of Fleury -- and the referree -- and got nailed for it.
About 25 seconds later, with LW Chris Kunitz barrelling up the ice with the puck on the resulting 4-on-4, Flyers' rookie center Claude Giroux took another obvious and undisciplined penalty when he slashed and broke Kuntiz' stick, giving the Penguins' an almost-unheard of 5-on-3 playoff OT man-advantage.
About 1 minute into that penalty, Guerin sent the Flyers back to Philadelphia with their collective tails between their legs, taking a pass from defenseman Sergei Gonchar to Biron's right, moving in, surveying the scene, and then beating the cheating Biron low on the short side from about 5 feet for the victory.
The Mellon Arena crowd went nuts, and I just about did the same at home.
As I mentioned, Philadelphia played much better in this game -- arguably good enough to win. However, the truth of the matter is that the Penguins' probably had the better of the overall play. They outhit the Flyers by a massive margin, 50-29, and ousthot them, 49-40. For the second straight game, they also won more faceoffs.
It has to be demoralizing for the Flyers to have made their adjustments after game 1 so successfully, but still lose. All overtime playoff games have extra momentum built into them, but after game 1 and the blown lead late in game 2, the fragile Flyers had even more riding on the outcome last night.
Instead of going back to Philadlephia with home ice, the Penguins made their great effort in game 1 count and just about doubled the pressure on the Flyers to sweep their home set or likely face a quick end to their season. If the Flyers can't find a way to get production from some people in this series -- like Carter, Richards and Gagne, among others -- they're going to struggle to avoid the brooms coming out. But their problem is that Fleury has played well -- he's now undefeated in his career in playoff overtime games (3-0). It remains to be seen if they're going to be able to crack him.
Meanwhile, Malkin has 5 points in this series, including 3 last night, to lead all scorers. The Penguins' are getting production from their top guys, and they're getting contributions from everyone elsewhere up and down their lineup.
All the pressure is now squarely on the Flyers going into Sunday afternoon's nationally televised game 3 (3 PM EST). They'll have a lot of momentum in their home barn early on Sunday, and the Penguins will have to work harder than they have so far in this series just to stem the tide early in that one.
If they can do that -- or even better -- silence the crowd and make the Flyers doubt themselves even more by getting on the board early, the battle of Pennsylvania could end up being even shorter than it was last season.
More on gameday tomorrow.
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