Flyers ready for Pens in playoffs
PITTSBURGH » Four times the Flyers tried this season, and four times they failed. Not all of them miserably, at least.
In their four efforts to reinvigorate what only a few years ago was a tight and impassioned rivalry with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Flyers lost two meetings in regulation, two in extra time ... and only once didn’t make a game of it. Progress? Not really. Not when you’re looking for a reason to believe that everything can be different now, when the stakes are higher in the postseason.
“Obviously, there’s more on the line,” Sean Couturier said. “Every little detail matters, whether it’s blocking a shot, chipping a puck out, winning a faceoff and all those little things that can make a difference in winning a series. So that’s huge, but at the same time you can’t overthink it. The red lines, the blue lines, the goals, the nets, they’re at the same places. It’s the same game out there, just with more at stake.”
Like Couturier’s Hoosiers-inspired pre-game speech, indeed it will be the same physical layout on Pittsburgh’s gleaming ice sheet at PPG Paints Arena for the start of a first-round series Wednesday night at 7.
Same lines on the ice, same Penguins lines blurring past the Flyers. Same Sid, too.
“It’s going to be an intense series, we know that,” Crosby said Tuesday after a Penguins practice. “That’s why it’s playoff hockey.”
Asked the usual question about the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia rivalry always rising above the rest, Crosby gave his usual answer ... meh.
“It’s hard to rank them,” he said. “It’s certainly up there. Washington and Columbus are in close proximity. There’s a lot of teams that you play each other enough in the division and you develop those rivalries. But I think this one dates back before a lot of us played. It gets the fans excited.”
That’s especially true when advancement to the second round is at stake.
“In the playoffs that’s what you expect,” Crosby said, “intensity and emotion.”
Based on recent successes and failures, however, it would likely be the Flyers who would stream tears of joy over a series victory here.
If Brian Elliott hadn’t required abdominal surgery in February and had instead rolled right along at the calm clip with which he was tending goal, perhaps the series breakdown wouldn’t look so bleak for Philly. But with Michal Neuvirth also getting injured as usual, they Flyers ended up starting four different goalies in search of consistency.
Then again, with inconsistent Petr Mrazek and rookie Alex Lyon at the controls, they still managed to win enough down the stretch to control their playoff destiny until Elliott returned last Thursday against Carolina in Game 81. With victories in both of his season-ending outings, the Flyers finished with points in nine of their last 10 games (6-1-3).
The Penguins (47-29-6, 100 points), who finished just ahead of the third-place Flyers (42-26-14, 98) in the Metropolitan Division, didn’t finish as strongly as Philly. So maybe the predictions of a lopsided series don’t really ring true ...?
MVP candidate Claude Giroux might think so.
“It’s tough making the playoffs and it’s tough going past the first round and even tougher in the second round,” said Giroux, who along with four teammates has experienced a secondround playoff series as a Flyer (in 2012). “It’s really a challenge that we’re excited to have in here. Looking back, when we lost to the Rangers (in 2014) and when we lost to Washington (in 2016) in the first round, we’re a different team now.
“Our identity’s different; I think we’re a more mature team and the first game is going to be everybody running around. It’s always like that in the first game, in the first few shifts. But for us, it’s (about) just keep our composure and make sure we play smart.”
That’s because they can’t risk giving the Penguins too many power plays ... as they did for the most part in the regular-season games, enabling the Penguins to outscore them 20-11 during the course of them. No team in the NHL ranked better than Pittsburgh when it came to power plays and sheer scoring power.
Keep the penalty-killing mandates to a minimum, and maybe these newly mature Flyers — who nonetheless start several young players in key spots — have a fighting chance. Even though the fights that pleasantly pockmarked the teams’ last playoff meeting in 2012 are a thing of the past.
For the Flyers, a return to the past wouldn’t be so bad, since they dominated in Pittsburgh’s glitzy new arena in its early years (11-1 from 2010-11 through 2014-15).
Not so these past three seasons, as the Flyers have won only three of 12 regular-season meetings with the Pens.
Not that that means anything...
“They’ve got special players on the other side that make special plays, so for us it’s to make sure we minimize those chances,” Giroux said. “We’re going to need everybody be on the same page here.”
Of course, along the way, the Penguins have beaten a whole lot of other teams, too. With Stanley Cups the past two years, they’re looking to become the first team to win three in a row since the early ‘80s New York Islanders.
“That would be great,” Crosby said. “I think it’s something that when you bring it up it’s great to think about, but we’re a long ways away . ... Regardless of how many you’ve won or how recent it is, it’s just about finding a way to win this year. There’s a lot of guys here this year who haven’t played a ton of playoff games, so you have to kind of keep it under wraps as far as what your expectations are looking forward.”
Forward they march, hoping to extend their nearly three-year hold on their favorite cross-Commonwealth rival for at least one more glorious (but no longer gory) playoff series.
But there is a growing resistance in the ranks of the Flyers to such a presumed Pittsburgh idea.
“I don’t think we’ve played our best game, or even a full 60 minutes against Pittsburgh yet,” Couturier said. “I like our chances if we play some good hockey with focus for 60 minutes or maybe even more. It should be interesting if we can match a full 60 minutes against their team.”