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Flyers Playoff Gameday: ECQF Game 6 vs Penguins

April 22, 2012, 7:03 AM ET [1639 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
PREVIEW 6:30 AM EDT

By early evening today, there will be joy or grave concern among hockey fans in the Delaware Valley. At noon, the Philadelphia Flyers will try for the third time to close out their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The game will be broadcast nationally on NBC in the U.S. and TSN in Canada.

Statistically, teams that score first win about 70 percent of the time. In this series, however, the team that has scored first has lost all five games to date. That is not all that shocking because the Penguins and Flyers finished 1st and 2nd in the NHL in winning percentage when they yield the first goal.

On Friday night, the Flyers did a lot of things well, but were done in by a poor second period and their inability to score an even strength goal for a second straight game against Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. It hurt to keep Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby off the scoreboard in an elimination game and still lose, 3-2.

An emerging pattern in this series has been that the Flyers have generally been able to hold their own at even strength with the Sean Couturier line out against the Malkin line and Claude Giroux's unit out against Crosby's line. But the Jordan Staal line has created a serious defensive matchup problem against the Danny Briere line. The Flyers are going to have to find a way to manage it better.

With Nicklas Grossmann (concussion) and Andrej Meszaros (back surgery) sidelined, the Flyers had to use a patchwork defense in Game 5. The top 3 of Kimmo Timonen, Braydon Coburn and Matt Carle logged massive ice time last game. Rookie Erik Gustafsson played solidly in limited duty, but veterans Pavel Kubina and Andreas Lilja struggled.

Grossmann skated yesterday and there is a possibility he will try to play today. The team has not publicly acknowledged he has a concussion, which is a common practice in the playoffs. Of course, we have seen that a concussed player can pass baseline tests. It is unlikely that Grossmann is symptom-free at this point, however. If he plays today, his minutes may be managed carefully. If the series goes to seven games, I think he'll play on Tuesday.

Meszaros, meanwhile, resumed skating several days ago. He is not ready to play today but could also give it his best effort if there is a Game 7.

Over on the Pittsburgh side, it bears watching to see how Crosby looks. He took the brunt of an accidental collision with Malkin in the first period of the last game. Although the Penguins' captain remained in the game and both he and the team insist he is fine, the concussion-prone center did not quite look like himself as the game progressed.

For the Flyers to close out the series today, the team is going to need a big effort from Ilya Bryzgalov. The big Russian netminder has looked physically hampered ever since sustaining a chip fracture in his right foot and there have been rampant rumors that he is playing through a hip issue as well. He's having a hard time moving laterally and recovering once he goes down to the ice.

That is understandable. But even with lower-body issues affecting his movement, Bryzgalov needs to show better rebound control and cover his angles better than he has in the last three games.


PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)

FLYERS

Hartnell - Giroux - Jagr
Schenn - Briere - Simmonds
Talbot - Couturier - Voracek
JVR - Read - Wellwood

Carle - Timonen
Coburn - Grossmann (Carle/Timonen/Gustafsson)
Lilja - Kubina/Gustafsson

Bryzgalov
[Bobrovsky]


PENGUINS

Kunitz - Malkin - Neal
Sullivan - Crosby - Dupuis
Cooke - Staal - Kennedy
Tangradi - Adams - xxxx

Niskanen - Letang
Orpik - Michalek
Depres - Engelland
Strait - (Letang)

Fleury
[Johnson]

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