Memories still fresh from last clash
Flyers renew acquaintances with in-state rival Penguins
“They’ve got four lines that can play against anybody ... They’re a really good team, and in playoffs, they always find a way. So for us it’s a challenge ... it should be a fun series.”
– Flyers captain Claude Giroux
VOORHEES, N.J. » They’re ready to party at the bar in the Marriott across the street, all adorned in their bumble-bee-colored clothes, trying to sneak their beers outside so that they can cross the street. There they can stand on the sidewalk with a good view of the projector-screen TV the team likes to set up outside the arena, a perk for regular Joe and Mary Penguins fan who didn’t spend that week’s paychecks for a pair of tickets.
Welcome to hockey fandom in Pittsburgh, a place that long ago grew accustomed to cheering for a winning team, a favorite Fifth Ave. pasttime that only multiplies in glee whenever the Flyers are the chosen Schmoes.
There was always a bit of a rivalry between the teams, stemming from early decades of the Flyers beating up the inept Pens, then having it shift almost the other way when hockey lord and future franchise savior Mario Lemieux alighted. He still over-
sees this success story that he kept in town a decade or so ago, and with Sidney Crosby as his golden idol, the Penguins have become an institution, bolstered the past two years by a pair of Stanley Cup championships.
Their black-and-gold-clad convoy of fans, who hit a bump with a 2012 Flyers playoff victory, had used that experience only to ramp up their support for a team that also used it as motivation to get better. And better the Penguins became.
Now they try to become the first team in nearly four decades to win a third consecutive Stanley Cup title, with Crosby and his crafty braintrust of Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and perhaps a stronger supporting cast than ever before, relishing their luck ... because what better opponent for the first round than those same Flyers they’ve spent the past few years beating and re-beating?
“They’ve got four lines that can play against anybody,” Flyers captain Claude Giroux said Monday. “Them getting (Derick) Brassard as a third-line center, I mean, he’s not a third-line center on any other team. They have all the pieces on paper. They’re a really good team, and in playoffs, they always find a way. So for us it’s a challenge ... it should be a fun series.”
It certainly was fun six years ago, Giroux then 24 years old and coming into his own as an elite player. Crosby had been the best No. 1 pick of that time, thought by many to be the league’s best player. But Giroux and the Flyers took a three games to none lead. Then came a 10-3 shocker of a Penguins win at Wells Fargo Center. They carried that momentum home and came away with a 3-2 victory in Game 5, bringing the series to a near-boiling point as it went back to Philadelphia ... where the Flyers responded.
“I think we were prepared for that Game 6,” Jake Voracek said. They were indeed, winning 5-1 in a game that essentially began and ended with Giroux clocking Crosby with a clean check that sent him flying and rendered him generally ineffective.
The Flyers couldn’t have envisioned that the Devils were going to knock them off so easily in five games in the second round. Yet that first-round win in 2012 remains fresh, since it elevated then-first year Flyers Voracek and Wayne Simmonds into mainstays in the eyes of fans.
It also elevated Giroux into a star, but it would be the last playoff series won by their team. Six long years ago. “Yeah, that was a crazy series,” said Sean Couturier, a teen-aged checking-line rookie who specialized in getting under Malkin’s skin. “It was probably not like any other series, where usually it’s tight and defensive. But there were a lot of goals scored in that series (56 total in the six games), a lot of offense. A lot of momentum swings on both sides.”
It was also a series that featured a lovely 309 penalty minutes, casting away the notion that fighting was for the regular season only.
Yet the game has changed dramatically since, and the physical manifestations of the relationship between these players has dwindled. There are five Flyers remaining from that 2012 team (Giroux, Voracek, Simmonds, Couturier and Matt Read), while only three Penguins (Crosby, Malkin, Kris Letang) are still around.
Yet as different as these teams are from six years ago, their offensive nature remains, and it’s seen primarily in their respective approaches on power plays. Especially so for Pittsburgh, with Crosby, Malkin and Letang still creating havoc, along with Kessel and Patric Hornqvist (15 powerplay goals) adding vast measures of marksmanship.
It is one special unit. The frequently injured Letang is healthy this go-round, quarterbacking the NHL’s best power play. It has clicked along at a league-best 26.2 percent success rate. Kessel (42), Malkin (38) and Crosby (38) rank first and tied for third, respectively, in league power-play points.
If the Flyers have any hopes of preventing the Penguins from getting an early jump Wednesday and Friday in the series’ first two games in Pittsburgh, then they’re going to have to limit the Penguins’ power-play opportunities.
“We’re going to have to be disciplined,” said Couturier, now a 30-plus goal scorer and the club’s best penalty killer. “If I remember correctly, we took a lot of penalties against this team (this season). So you can’t give them the chance to get momentum. It’s going to be key to be disciplined, stay out of the box and elevate our play (when) down a guy.”
Considering the nature of this rivalry and its history of playoff meetings, it isn’t going to be easy for the Flyers to keep their cool.
“I think sometimes the emotions take over,” Couturier admitted. “It’s going to be key in playoffs to never get too high, never get too low. You have to be in control of your emotions.”
That’s one way to stay penaltyfree, and the Flyers did that well during the season, logging the third-lowest total of shorthanded situations in the league. But that wasn’t the story in the four games — all losses — against the Penguins this season. In those four games, the Pens clicked on five of 13 power play chances, a glistening 38.5 percent.
But those Flyers penalties didn’t only result from random acts of frustration.
“They’re just a good team,” Voracek said. “They move better. They’re fast. When you are in trouble you usually take a penalty. That’s why. We have to make sure we skate with them very well to stay out of the box.”
Good idea, since the Flyers’ penalty kill ranked an ugly 29th this season.