Flyers just can’t cope with Crosby
Pittsburgh captain fires hat-trick in 7-0 rout of flustered Philadelphia
PITTSBURGH — The sluggish opening three months. The so-so finish. The lax attention to detail on defense. None of it matters anymore. The playoffs are here. And so are the defending champions.
Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins provided proof in their 7-0 demolition of the Philadelphia Flyers in the opening game of their best-ofseven Stanley Cup quarterfinal on Wednesday night.
Crosby performed more stick wizardry on his way to his third postseason hat-trick, Evgeni Malkin added a highlight-reel goal of his own and Jake Guentzel had a goal and three assists as the Penguins overwhelmed their crossstate rival to begin their quest for a third straight Stanley Cup.
Not that captain Crosby wanted to buy into any sort of message sending, even after the Penguins became only the fifth team in NHL history to win a series opener by at least seven goals.
“It’s only one game,” Crosby said. “Whether it’s 7-0 or 1-0 or double overtime, it’s one game. A big part of the playoffs is to get better every game and to adjust, and that’s the way we have to look at it.”
That might be a frightening proposition for the rest of the NHL. It certainly is for the Flyers, who have lost all five meetings with Pittsburgh this season, giving up at least five goals each time.
But nothing that happened during the regular season compared to Wednesday night. The Penguins pumped five goals in the first 29:01 to chase goalie Brian Elliott, and the Flyers simply could not keep pace.
“It was one of the worst games I’ve ever been a part of,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said.
Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol mercifully pulled Elliott after Crosby swatted Brian Dumoulin’s point shot out of the air and knocked the puck past a stunned Elliott to put the Penguins up 5-0 just before the game’s midway point.
Elliott stopped 14 of 19 shots before being replaced by Petr Mrazek. Mrazek made 12 saves, but Hakstol indicated he’s likely to go back to Elliott in Friday’s Game 2.
Whoever is in net for the Flyers, it won’t matter if the play in front of them isn’t better. Philadelphia’s powerplay went 0 for 4 and didn’t even generate a shot.
“They beat us in pretty much every aspect tonight, starting from the net out,” Elliott said. “Everybody just has to be better.”
Bryan Rust and Carl Hagelin also scored for Pittsburgh, while Matt Murray stopped 24 shots for his third straight playoff shutout, dating back to last spring.
The Flyers stressed the need to stay out of the penalty box and to put together three disciplined periods if they wanted to put an abrupt halt to Pittsburgh’s run at history.
It didn’t happen. Not even close.
The Penguins struck early. Elliott stopped Kris Letang’s slap shot with his blocker only to see the long rebound go right to Rust, who ripped it over Elliott’s right shoulder to give the Penguins the lead 2:38 into the game.
Philadelphia’s best chance at staying in it came minutes later, but Scott Laughton whiffed on his first attempt from the doorstep and Murray made a sprawling glove save on Laughton’s second try to preserve Pittsburgh’s lead.
“If that goes in, it’s 1-1 and maybe we’re talking about a whole different result,” Crosby said.
Moments later, Hagelin expertly redirected Patric Hornqvist’s shot past Elliott 10:07 into the game.
Malkin drew a hooking penalty to negate a Pittsburgh powerplay, and when he emerged from the penalty box, he whizzed past three Flyers in one sequence before flicking a backhand past Elliott to put the Penguins 3-0 up before the series was 15 minutes old.
All that before Crosby got involved.
The two-time Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP has a knack for scoring in unorthodox ways.
He beat Montreal’s Carey Price with an intentional double-deflection and smacked a rebound out of air in overtime to top New Jersey within a span of eight days last month, then demonstrated the same wizardry in beating Elliott for Pittsburgh’s fifth goal of the night.