Flyers-Penguins Game 6 Recap: On To The Next Round

The Flyers dominated the Penguins in their decisive 5-1 win in Game 6 on Sunday afternoon that propelled the Flyers into the second round and sent the Penguins marching back to Pittsburgh. Here’s a recap of the action at the Wells Fargo Center:

Before the game, Claude Giroux asked Peter Laviolette for the first shift so he could “set the tone”. And what a shift it was: just seconds into the game he leveled Sidney Crosby with a punishing hit and then capitalized on a bad turnover in his own zone by Steve Sullivan and beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a shot to the short side. The unassisted goal came just 32 seconds into the game and blew the roof off the Wells Fargo Center. But the lead wasn’t safe. After all, the team scoring first was 0-5 in the series entering Game 6.

After a blatant interference penalty by Matt Cooke on Brayden Schenn gave the Flyers a power play more than halfway into the period, the potent PP unit capitalized once again for the Flyers. Jake Voracek found Claude Giroux for a blast from the right faceoff circle that Fleury initially stopped. Improbably, the puck squirted out from between Fleury’s legs and came to rest in the crease. Scott Hartnell somehow spotted the puck amid the sea of humanity piled up in the crease and dove for it, poking it into the net for a PP goal that gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead. This was arguably the best “Hartnell Down” of his career, and it gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead that they would hold for the rest of the period. Pittsburgh had the better of the chances for much of the period, but Ilya Bryzgalov stopped all 9 shots he faced.

Before and after an eventful power play early in the period that didn’t see a goal, the Flyers offense was somewhat stagnant until Erik Gustafsson scored his first career postseason goal in his second career postseason game just over 5 minutes into the period. He took a pass from Brayden Coburn and carried it through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, where he let a wrist shot go from inside the blue line. It went under Fleury’s arm and into the back of the net for the surprising goal. It seemed like Fleury just misjudged it, since he wasn’t screened and there were no deflections. Claude Giroux also picked up an assist on the goal that gave the Flyers a 3-0 lead.

But the Penguins weren’t quite done yet. After a hooking penalty on Brayden Coburn 8 minutes into the period, the Flyers had a couple of shorthanded chances early in the power play. However, they got greedy, and Evgeni Malkin ended up putting in an unassisted goal on a wrist shot through traffic to cut the Flyers’ lead to 3-1.

Just 45 seconds later, Danny Briere scored the goal that would prove to be the dagger in the Penguins’ hearts. After taking a pass from Jake Voracek, Briere fired a sharp angle shot at Fleury. He made the initial save, but the rebound bounced off a Penguin defender in the crease and squirted between Fleury’s legs for the goal. He attempted to stop it, but just couldn’t get his pad down quick enough. The referees had to go to video review to confirm it, but it was ruled a good goal and the Flyers took a 4-1 lead. Matt Carle also picked up an assist on the goal. This capped the scoring for the 2nd period. Bryzgalov had another spectacular period, keeping 9 of the 10 shots he faced out of the net.

The Flyers weathered an early storm from the Penguins in the 3rd period, killing off 2 penalties, and held the Penguins scoreless in the final period. The crowd erupted into chants of “Let’s go Flyers!”, “Crosby Sucks!”, “You can’t beat us!”, and “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey hey hey, goodbye!” as they serenaded the soon-to-be victorious Flyers. Brayden Schenn forced a turnover and added an unassisted, empty net goal with 8 seconds left in the period for a final score of 5-1, Flyers.

Revisiting the Keys to the Game:
My 3 keys to the game were even-strength scoring, stopping Jordan Staal’s line, and getting power play opportunities. The Flyers outscored the Penguins 3-0 when the teams were at even strength (not including Schenn’s empty-netter), which was crucial to the win. Not only was the Staal line held scoreless, but Staal was -2 and his linemates Matt Cooke and Tyler Kennedy were both -1. The Flyers only got 3 power play opportunities to the Penguins’ 5, but they converted the same amount (1) as the Penguins did. The Flyers played a very good, complete game, led by the leadership and skill of Claude Giroux and the stellar goaltending of enigmatic Ilya Bryzgalov, and as a result they are moving on to the 2nd round.