The biggest news heading into Game 6 was the absence of Evgeni Malkin. Geno is out for what is assumed to be a lower body injury suffered in Game 5. The Penguins superstar has nobody to blame but himself. The play in question was a sequence when Malkin appeared to kick out the legs of the Flyers player. That player fell on top of Malkin awkwardly which left 71 in quite a bit of pain. Malkin finished out Game 5. Not having Malkin is quite a loss and made things more difficult for the Penguins.

Pittsburgh had a pretty atrocious start to the game. Philadelphia racked up the first ten shot attempts of the game and that included their first goal which was accompanied by Benny Hill music for Chad Ruhwedel and Jamie Oleksiak.




Not a lot going right for the Penguins on that one.

Pittsburgh woke up and it was none other than Sidney Crosby. After winning the draw Sid was able to get lost and curl his way around to the net and was the recipient of a fortuitous bounce of the puck. Not long after that Phil Kessel was able to make a terrific pass to Carl Hagelin in front.




It was a nice cycle by Riley Sheahan who was bumped up to play with Kessel instead of Brassard. Phil Kessel is not an underrated passer. He’s a great passer. He is properly rated. I don’t know how anybody could think otherwise at this point.

The Benny Hill music showed up again and this time it was for Patric Hornqvist. He turned what should have been a routine cross ice pass into a catastrophe. Sean Couturier scored his second goal of the game on a wonderful breakaway move.



An NHL player has to make a better pass there. Wide open passing lane with Sidney Crosby on the other side with speed. A missed opportunity turned into a worst case scenario.

Things continued to get worse for the Penguins when Claude Giroux blew up Carl Hagelin on an unnecessary hit with the puck long gone. It left Hagelin bloodied and Phil Kessel was given a retaliatory penalty for chasing Giroux. The only purpose of hits like that is to hurt the opposing player. The sport will be better long term without those. The same thing applies to the Kris Letang crosscheck. Negligence creates these situations.

The Penguins did kill off the penalty, but Matt Murray let in a horrendous goal from Scott Laughton

Hornqvist made up for his turnover by finishing off a great passing play with both Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby.



Crosby’s assist was his 12th point of the playoffs putting him at a two point per game pace. The boos continue to be fruitless in Philadelphia.

Things weren’t done for the second period. We have ourselves a classic Penguins and Flyers playoff game where no lead is safe. Pittsburgh put on an offensive zone clinic to close out the second period and ended up tying the game.

Hornqvist continued to atone for his turnover by winning that puck race to keep the shift alive. Jake Guentzel was able to get a piece of Olli Maatta’s shot to tie the game. I really like how Maatta knew he had support and just got the puck through. When you have guys who are good at redirects you don’t/shouldn’t always try to pick spots. You can even shoot the puck wide and these guys can put it back on goal. Guentzel is among the best on the team at this with Crosby and Hornqvist.

What did the third period have in store for us? Didn’t have to wait long. What a game.



Properly rated passer Phil Kessel was at it again. Ivan Provorov has had a really good series, but he coughed it up to the wrong guy in the wrong spot.

To make things interesting the Penguins top pairing decided to take a couple of very avoidable penalties. The first was Brian Dumoulin sending the puck way into the rafters for a delay of game. The Penguins didn’t allow a shot on goal during that. Kris Letang then went ahead and turned in one of the worst sequences of the playoffs so far. He got totally manhandled by Sean Couturier in the corner and lost body position. To make up for it Letang crosschecked Couturier not once, but twice. It was an incredibly obvious penalty. His teammates bailed him out. Immediately coming out of the box Letang tripped Sean Couturier and there was no call. Jake Guentzel wired home a slap shot in the wake of the non-call. If I was Dave Hakstol I would have been ejected from the game. An embarrassing job by the official on that play.

While the Flyers were in disbelief Guentzel scored yet again. His fourth of the game. Adding to the accomplishment was that Guentzel’s four goals were all in a row. A natural hat trick plus one.

Sean Couturier turned in a hell of a performance. He ended up registering a hat trick and five points all on one leg. Super impressive stretch of play to conclude what was a great season by him.

And just like that the Flyers season is over and the Penguins will be waiting on the Capitals and Blue Jackets who can’t seem to get enough of overtime.

Evgeni Malkin and Carl Hagelin will get time to mend their injuries. The three-peat is still alive and well.

The Penguins will also get to leave Philadelphia with about $1.25 in can returns courtesy of the Flyer fans. Some of them were pretty full so I suppose they could save them for the parade in June. All in all a great day for Penguins hockey. Nine straight series wins.

Thanks for reading!

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