Yesterday afternoon's 8-4 Flyers victory over the Penguins was playoff hockey at it absolute best and worst. The skill level on display and cauldron of emotions made for great entertainment and drama. The deliberate headhunting exhibited by the losing side was a disgrace. The goaltending was not very good on either side.
On the Flyers side, we saw what the team is capable of doing offensively when multiple lines are clicking at once. In the first two games in Pittsburgh, Philly got explosive offense from individual 5-on-5 lines and from both sides their special teams. In Game 3, the team was firing on all cylinders both at even strength (all of the top nine forwards were flying) and special teams.
Philly got goals from five different scorers, and had three different players (Danny Briere, Matt Read and Max Talbot) register two-goal games. Marc-Andre Fleury let in two soft goals and was flailing around in desperation for much of his 40 minutes in goal, but he actually did not play poorly in the second period before giving way to Brent Johnson for the final 20 minutes of the game.
The Penguins' team defense and goaltending in this series have been a classic case of one springing a leak and sapping the other one along with it. In the first two games, the defense cracked and Fleury went from strong early on to looking shaky even when he did come up with stops. Last game, Fleury and the defense started out poorly together and contributed to the continued downward spiral of the other.
It sounds crazy to say that the Flyers played well defensively in a game where they yielded 4 goals and 35 shots. However, with the exception of the outset of the match and a stretch of about 6 minutes in the latter half of the second period, I thought the Flyers collectively did an adequate job of limiting the Penguins' high-powered offense. The club did a good job of piecing things together after Kimmo Timonen was lost to a game misconduct along with Pittsburgh's key offensive defenseman Kris Letang.
Unfortunately, Ilya Bryzgalov had his first truly poor game of the series (not just statistically, but in terms of actual play), yielding a power of outright soft goals and having trouble handling the puck. Bryzgalov's subpar day made the Philly defense in this game look worse than it actually was. He will need to play a lot better in Game 4 and beyond.
There was a stretch in the second period -- spanning shortly before the Pittsburgh power play that led to James Neal's second goal of the game until Chris Kunitz's awful offensive zone slashing penalty -- where I got worried about the safety of the Flyers' lead. After Neal's goal cut the Pittsburgh deficit to 4-3, the Penguins had the Flyers pinned in deep and struggling to clear pucks.
Kunitz took a tripping penalty, and the Flyers' power play went back to work. They cashed in on Matt Read's second goal of the game -- off a brilliant feed by Jaromir Jagr (3 assists) -- to restore a two-goal lead.
The Penguins surged again and briefly got back within 5-4 on a misplay by Bryzgalov that led to an easy tap-in for Jordan Staal. The soft goal appeared to be a bit deflating to the Flyers, as they started getting hemmed in deep in their offensive zone.
But Kunitz took an undisciplined slashing penalty with his team at work in the Philly end of the ice, and the Pittsburgh defense and Fleury got turned inside out by Wayne Simmonds on a final minute goal that restored the two-goal margin the Flyers.
Johnson came in to relieve Fleury at the start of the third period. Any possibility of a Pittsburgh third-period rally quickly evaporated when Sidney Crosby and the rest of the Penguins on the ice were spectactors as Jagr fed Giroux for a snap shot past a helpless Johson.
The rout was on, the wheels had totally fallen off for Pittsburgh and the rest of the game was little more than a series of head-hunting runs at key Flyers players, followed by another series of fights. This concludes the hockey analysis portion of the blog.
********
I have never minded fighting in hockey. It is an emotional sport, especially in the playoffs, and fighting has its place in the game depending on the situation. What I can't abide is gutless goonery in which the only intention is to cause injury.
James Neal
had past incidents where he's lost his cool and targeted opponents' heads.
Neal's post-game assertion that his blindside hit on Sean Couturier (who had not had the puck for several seconds) was accidental was laughable. Not only do replays show that Neal had his eyes fixed on his target, he also jumped into the hit. Thankfully, Couturier was later able to return to the game.
Later, on a sequence that started with Evgeni Malkin trading jabs and slashes behind the play, Neal blatantly went at Giroux's head, leaving the Flyers' single most important forward momentarily woozy.
I don't think Neal will be suspended beyond Game 4 (assuming the series extends that far). In these playoffs, Brendan Shahanan has already established a precedence that star players -- and Neal most certainly qualifies as a star, as he showed with his two tremendous goals yesterday -- will not get suspended if an act of reckless/ deliberate intent to injure does not put the victim out of the game.
Role players, however, get the full brunt of Shanny's wrath. Arron Asham is most certainly going to get a suspension for his first-period cross-check near Brayden Schenn's throat, followed by a punch to the back of Schenn's head as he laid on the ice. Asham no doubt thought Schenn had left his feet to deliver a hit moments earlier -- he got a charging minor out of it, although the referee's arm did not initially go up -- but the retaliation was way over the line.
Schenn, too, later returned to the game. But Asham's match penalty was well deserved and because his reputation is that of a fighter/agitator, he's going to sit games in this series while Neal will at most get a fine.
Craig Adams is also going to get a suspension. His is an automatic one-game suspension for getting an instigation penalty in the final five minutes of the game. Actually, all Adams was doing was answering the bell for Sidney Crosby.
Teams take a lead from their captains. Crosby's behavior in this series has not been that of a "fierce competitor" looking to gain any possible edge for his team. Rather, he's conducted himself like an entitled, spoiled brat who picks fights and then hides. Yes, he fought Giroux yesterday because he had the presence of mind to know that would be a worthwhile tradeoff rather than going with a less-vital Flyer.
Other than that, Crosby has regressed in this series to his rookie season behavior of starting things that others have to finish, diving, taking cheapshots, and complaining to the referees about every single call that doesn't go his way.
When he's played hockey in this series -- see his goals early in Games 1 and 2 -- Crosby has been a force. When he's been the one side-tracking his own team (I blame Crosby for the sequence leading up to the secondary fight that got Letang automatically booted from the game yesterday), Crosby has actually hurt his own club.
The rest of the team has followed its captain's lead -- right to a 3-0 deficit in the series. Meanwhile, the Flyers and every other team in the NHL now have a pretty trusty blueprint for playing Pittsburgh.
Dan Bylsma is a coach who preaches discpline, but his captain (and everyone else) has tuned him out at the worst possible time. The Penguins have not been disciplined in any way, shape or form -- not defensively and not mentally either.
********
KINDLE USERS: Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information
click here.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»