Going into game 4 of this Eastern Conference Quarterfinal between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers last night at the raucous Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, the Flyers had a lot of offensive confidence.
They put 5 pucks behind Marc-Andre Fleury (and an empty-netter) in game 3 Sunday afternoon to the tune of a 6-3 win.
They thought they had cracked Fleury, who had been pretty strong in games 1 and 2.
Last night, they threw everything and the kitchen sink at Fleury but the Penguins' goaltender was nearly impenetrable, stonewalling the Flyers at every turn to the tune of 45 saves on 46 shots, leading the Penguins to a 3-1 win and a commanding series advantage by the same tally.
Fleury was good from the drop of the puck last night. He swallowed up many shots entirely, and rarely left any rebounds for Philadelphia -- at least not any that weren't easily cleared by Pittsburgh's defense.
Overall, the Flyers outshot the Penguins 46-26.
Let's face it. Fleury is making a big difference for the Penguins in this series. His counterpart in Philadelphia's goal, Martin Biron, hasn't played poorly. But you don't see him standing on his head to single-handedly win a game for the Flyers either. That's why the Penguins had a clear edge in this series in goal going into things and, so far anyway, that has proven true on the ice.
Sidney Crosby got things going for the Penguins early in the 2nd period when he drove the net and had a Chris Kunitz' centering feed go off his stick and his body and in after Crosby had lost his balance and slid into the goal to the left of Biron.
After a review, the goal counted, despite some unhappiness from the Flyer faithful about Crosby making contact with Biron and causing him to slide into the net himself on the play.
The call was correct, however. The puck went in before any contact between Crosby and Biron.
RW Tyler Kennedy scored a huge goal about 4 minutes later, steaming towards the net and taking a pass from LW Matt Cooke at the inner edge of the right circle before deking to the backhand and easily depositing the puck behind Biron on the short side to give Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead.
At that point, the play was relatively even, but the Penguins began sitting on the lead and were pretty much unable to break that trend for the final 30 minutes. That's when the Flyers really turned up the heat.
And when Fleury was at his best.
The masked man wearing #29 for the Penguins made several strong pad saves low to the ice across his body, stopped with his glove a laser from Flyers' RW Simon Gagne in the slot, and even made a stop with a turnaround dive to the post before Philadelphia center Mike Richards could put the puck in on a rebound off the back boards.
It didn't matter what activity was going on in front of or around Fleury -- he was singularly focused on the puck.
The only shot that got by him was a top shelfer by Philadelphia LW Daniel Carcillo, who scored with about 9 minutes to go to give the Flyers some life.
No matter. Fleury held the fort the rest of the way and allowed Max Talbot to seal things with an empty netter with 50 seconds to go.
Fleury's save percentage is now .937 in the playoffs.
Kudos also go to Penguin penalty killers Max Talbot, Craig Adams, Pascal Dupuis, Jordan Staal and Matt Cooke who, together with the aid of the defense, blocked 20 shots and clogged enough passing lanes to shut down all 8 -- that's right, EIGHT -- Philadelphia power plays last night.
Obviously, that's way too many penalties for the Penguins to take. They are playing with fire giving that many chances to the league's 6th best man-advantage this year.
That said, a few of the calls last night were questionable, including a tripping call on Mark Eaton in the 3rd period that was a plain hip check in open ice.
Maybe the official who made that call was too young to even know what a hip check is?
With the victory, the Penguins can wrap up the series in 5 games on home ice -- as they did in last year's Eastern Conference Final.
They'd be wise to try and polish off the Flyers, both so they can get some rest, and so they don't need to go into a hostile environment again for game 6 on Saturday afternoon.
For what it's worth, Philadelphia is 0-13 in series' in which they've been down 3 games to 1.
Unless they can figure out a way to rattle Fleury again, it's going to be a tough road for them to climb.
The Flyers are trying to say the right things, of course. The talk from them now is that, if they play the way they did last night again, good things will happen.
But the chance of that happening again isn't that great. The Penguins have owned the Flyers on home ice the last few years. Certainly, a victory for them in game 5 isn't a given just because of that, but there's no doubt the Penguins are going to have a boost from their home crowd, and probably won't give the Flyers as many power plays.
They'll also have Fleury in goal.
As we've seen, that alone is enough to deliver a victory, and it could be again on the way to polishing off the hated Flyers.
More tomorrow.
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1 comment:
Nice read Mario. I believe you said in an earlier blog entry that certain net minders have the ability to steal a series. While Fleury has generally been considered a good goalie, few actually labeled him as great. While he played very solid in Games 1 & 2, he faltered in Game 3. Game 4 was on a different level. He is definitely the MVP of the series thus far, and the primary reason why the Pens have a 3-1 series advantage. His play was stellar last night. The Flyers played a great game, but they could not beat MAF. The outstanding goal tending by MAF and the excellent play of our 3rd line and penalty kill units have the Pens poised to finish off the vile Flyers tomorrow night. Can I get a Let's Go Pens?
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