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Game 4 Wrap: Penguins Blitz Flyers, 5-0 |
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GAME 4 WRAP: PENS BLITZ FLYERS, 5-0
The Philadelphia Flyers are on the brink of elimination in the first round of the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, following a 5-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 4 at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night. The series returns to Pittsburgh on Friday night.
The game followed a distressingly familiar pattern that previously emerged in Games 1 and 3. The Flyers paid for an early penalty and a missed clearing opportunity on the penalty kill. They had a run of momentum for several minutes only to yield a counterattacking goal. Things snowballed from there.
Trailing 2-0 after the first period, the deficit doubled in an atrocious middle stanza that made the third period academic. In all four regular season meetings and three of the four playoff games to date, the Penguins have scored at least five goals on the Flyers.
"I don’t think we did a very good job of getting through the neutral zone to establish any kind of forecheck. They seemed to be smothering us there and breaking up a lot of plays preventing us from getting in, so it’s hard to generate a lot when you’re not getting in the offensive zone much," defenseman Andrew MacDonald said.
Brian Elliott got the start in goal for the Flyers, and kept the team in the game until a 2-on-1 counterattack dribbled off both of his legs, the post and then into the net. He was pulled at 8:04 of the second period after the Penguins made it 3-0. Elliott stopped 14 of 17 shots. Michal Neuvirth mopped up the rest of the way, stopping 11 of 13 shots.
The most deflating moment of the game came when the Penguins scored the 2-0 goal. The Flyers had strung together two-and-a-half consecutive shifts of heavy pressure. Then Scott Laughton, from the left half boards, apparently thought linemate Jordan Weal was going to cut into the left slot. Instead, Weal trailed in the circle. The result was a diagonal pass with defenseman Travis Sanheim as the nearest teammate. The Penguins intercepted and scored the other way on a stoppable shot that changed up on a moving Elliott.
"We had some pressure there and then you know they end up with a 2-on-1 and a partial break. Obviously, I want to make that save and keep us in the game there, but I didn’t," Elliott said.
Elliott had no chance on the first Pittsburgh goal. The second was a save that was desperately needed and not made. The third was a deflection off a Flyers' stick.
"I felt like I was playing pretty good and that shot coming down, I know [Kris Letang] is going glove, that’s all he has then it goes off our own stick in front and ends up in the elbow, so that’s kind of something you can’t really do anything about. It’s tough to come out of the game like that when you’re still feeling pretty good out there, but you understand it, trying to shake things up, trying to make a change to get everybody going," Elliott said.
The Flyers came out with very little push in the second period -- before or after the goalie switch -- and their frustrations only deepened with at atrocious early period power play that Pittsburgh killed with ease. Later, after the Penguins scored the next two goals, the Flyers were unable to make any dent in the deficit during a four-minute power play.
"The second period: That was a key portion of the game. From the start of the period they pushed the momentum the first 3-4 minutes. We had an opportunity to turn the momentum with our first power play in the second period there and we didn’t do it. From there we didn’t do the job really in the second. Coming out of the first period, even though we’re down 2-0 there’s a time period of 6-7 minutes where I really liked what we looked like. But that’s not enough. Rather than have the push we needed at the start of the second, we were back on our heels," Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol said.
Matt Murray earned his second shutout win of the series; this one a 26-saver. He was tested on a few breakaways but otherwise saw the shots behind a team that boxed out well in front of him. The Penguins also blocked 16 Flyers shot attempts.
"Honestly, we didn’t have enough 'A' opportunities tonight. Especially at a critical time. I thought tonight was a night where we didn’t get enough into the critical area. They were good in terms of really boxing up things down low, clogging lanes whenever we were shooting outside," Hakstol said.
"Tonight was first night where I felt like we had some looks that got through to the net, but we didn’t have net front presence. So it’s a combination of all those things. You’re asking about the top guys, our power play has not been clicking and that’s a big part of it."
Evgeni Malkin (power play goal, one assist), Phil Kessel (one goal, one assist) Sidney Crosby (one goal, one assist) all had two-point games for Pittsburgh, as did Jake Guentzel (two assists). Kris Letang and Riley Sheahan rounded out the goal scoring. Dominik Simon, Olli Määttä and Zach Aston-Reese rounded out the scoring.
The Penguins went 1-for-4 on the power play, while Philly went 0-for-4. Pittsburgh is 5-for-19 overall on the man advantage in the series, and 15-for-17 on the penalty kill.
With Selke Trophy finalist Sean Couturier unavailable to the Flyers due to a lower-body injury sustained at practice on Tuesday, Nolan Patrick and Valtteri Filppula moved up one line in the rotation. Scott Laughton shifted from left wing back to his natural center position. Oskar Lindblom, originally slated to be a healthy scratch, remained in the lineup but was demoted to the fourth line.
Overall, most of the players whom the Flyers needed to step up big -- team captain Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek and Shayne Gostisbehere, among others -- continued to struggle. With those players not producing and Couturier unavailable, Patrick (six shots on goal, five credited hits) was the Flyers' most active forward on the attack. Travis Konecny generated three shots on goal and was another one of the few Flyers who was able to generate opportunities.
As the game moved along, Hakstol made a change on his defense pairings, placing Andrew MacDonald with Ivan Provorov and Gostisbehere with Sanheim.
1ST PERIOD SYNOPSIS
The Patrick line started out against the Crosby line. Patrick landed a big hit on Crosby in the opening minute. On the next shift, the Flyers had a near 2-on-1 opportunity but Wayne Simmonds lost a race to the puck.
Elliott had to make two tough early saves. The second, on Riley Sheahan, was right from the doorstep.
At a stoppage at the 3:00 mark on a delayed holding penalty on Matt Read, the Flyers took exception to a late hit after the whistle on Andrew MacDonald. Ivan Provorov skated a puck to safety on the kill and fired it on net to allow for a change. Malkin fumbled a puck in the right circle but Laughton didn't pounce on it, and the Penguins retained control. That proved crucial a few seconds later. From the right circle, Malkin took a cross-ice feed from Crosby and rifled it home for a 1-0 lead at 4:33. The assists went to Crosby and Kessel.
Elliott made a good stop on Derick Brassard from the left circle to keep the game at 1-0.
Giroux, at the end of a shift, caught the Penguins on a line change but Brian Dumoulin caught up to him and blocked a shot attempt. Simmonds and Travis Konecny worked a give-and-go at 8:53 but Konecny didn't get much of the puck.
Shayne Gostisbehere lost the puck to Jake Guentzel inside the blueline. Elliott stopped his left circle shot. The long rebound went out to Dominik Simon. Elliott saved it out of play. A TV timeout ensued at 9:39. Shots were 8-3 Penguins.
With MacDonald caught up ice and Provorov the lone defender, the Penguins had a near 2-on-1 chance but couldn't make connections. At the other end, Raffl was stopped from the doorstep.
The Patrick line generated a lengthy shift with heavy pressure in the Pittsburgh end. The second line, especially Konecny, followed it up with a good shift. But then Laughton made an ill-advised backward diagonal pass intended for Travis Sanheim. The Penguins intercepted it, counterattacked and scored. Malkin fed Kessel, whose knuckling shot from the bottom of the right circle went off the inside of Elliott's left pad, off the back his right leg, off the left post and over the goal line at 14:37 for a 2-0 lead.
All three forwards on the Filppula line got initially caught behind the play up ice and, racing back the other way, Konecny took an interference penalty at 17:12. Malkin came within a whisker of scoring on a wraparound. As the penalty expired, Giroux sprang Konecny on a breakaway but he was denied by Murray. Olli Määttä then flipped the puck over the glass. After a long officials' conference, the Flyers went on the power play at 19:21. Just eight seconds later, Simmonds was called for a stick slashing penalty behind the Pittsburgh net.
With 14.7 seconds left, after a Giroux-to-Voracek pass missed connections in the Pittsburgh net, Crosby crashed into the goal post in the Philly end.
2ND PERIOD SYNOPSIS
The teams skated 4-on-4 to open the period. Elliott stopped Sheary at 36 seconds from the right hash marks.
Laughton was hit from behind near the end wall in the Pittsburgh zone by Justin Schultz. The crowd screamed for a boarding penalty but didn't get it.
Jamie Oleksiak made an ill-advised pinch and Tom Kuhnhackl took a holding penalty at 3:31. Voracek took the follow-through of a Letang clearing attempt to the face. Konecny stepped out in his place for a shift with the top power play unit. The power play got nothing going.
The second line had a good forechecking shift but it produced only a blocked Manning shot attempt on a low-to-high play. At a TV timeout at 7:37, shots were 4-0 Pens.
The Pens took a 3-0 lead at 8:04. The Penguins' Guentzel got to a dump in around the wall. Letang pinched up to the top of the left circle and wristed a shot that deflected up off MacDonald's stick and went into the top right corner. Elliott was then removed from the game in favor of Neuvirth.
At a TV timeout at 11:05, second period shots were 6-1 Penguins.
The Penguins made it 4-0 at 10:56. Giroux and Gostisbehere were beaten in a battle behind the net. Neuvirth, expecting the play to swing out to the opposite post, was caught unaware as Crosby stepped out in front on the right side and stuffed the puck home. The assists went to Guentzel and Simon.
Sheary had a breakaway right after the goal. Neuvirth knocked it aside. At the other end, Weal and Gostisbehere had shots blocked by the layered Pittsburgh defenses. With 5:36 left, Neuvirth snared a Määttä shot.
Voracek set up a Patrick scoring chance off the rush -- the Flyers' first meaningful opportunity of the period -- and then Gostisbehere had a follow-up try at 14:51.
With 3:43 left in the period, during a battle on the wall on the Flyers' zone, Konecny went down holding his face from a Malkin high stick. A double minor was called. Pittsburgh won battle after battle on the walls and blocked shots. The fans booed as the period ended. The Flyers took 17 seconds of carryover time into the third period.
Shots were 11-7 Pittsburgh (22-17 Penguins overall).
3RD PERIOD SYNOPSIS
The remaining power play time for the Flyers passed uneventfully. Patrick then broke in one-on-one with Murray but put a backhander over the net.
Gostisbehere remained on a defense pairing with Sanheim. MacDonald continued to skate with Provorov.
At 4:09, Neuvirth stopped a Kessel shot on which he tried to use the D as a screen.
Raffl and Voracek had a 2-on-1 opportunity but the puck skittered away on the pass across the ice. Patrick won an ensuing left circle faceoff and Gostisbehere generated a point shot. Murray made his 20th save. The Penguins iced the puck at 7:07.
Filppula momentarily split the defense to receive a pass but was denied by Murray on a wrister from the middle slot. Lindblom and Laughton worked a mini give-and-go but Lindblom could not get much on his shot.
Sanheim joined a rush and had a chance up the left side but was broken up by a stick check.
With 4:14 left, Sheahan received a long flip pass from Määttä off the Konecny's glove and went in and beat Neuvirth to make it a 5-0 game. The secondary assist went to Zach Ashton-Reese.
At 18:23, Read got a slashing penalty.
Third period shots were 9-7 Flyers (29-26 Pittsburgh overall).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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