Neuvirth delivers again for Flyers in Game 5

This just in: Although the Flyers were outscored by 10 goals over the course of the first three games of their playoff series with the Washington Capitals, then turned around and survived a 2-1 victory in Game 4 Wednesday night, coach Dave Hakstol informed the media Friday afternoon that there really wasn’t much difference in the way his team played in any of the four games.

But then, that’s his perspective, not ours.

“I think our team played very similar to the way we played the first few games,” Hakstol said prior to Friday night’s Game 5 at Verizon Center. “There wasn’t a lot of difference to our play in Game 4 from the first three. Like I said, take out 15 minutes from Game 3; other than that, our team has played pretty consistently.”

Take out Michal Neuvirth in Game 4, and the only athletic consistency the Flyers could be showing right now would be on their drives and putts.

Neuvirth delivered again in Game 5 with a 2-0 Flyers victory on Friday night.

Neuvirth was outstanding in the fourth series game after Steve Mason was riddled through the first three games

to the tune of a 4.09 goalsagainst average and .852 save percentage, and that’s with some favorable accounting work.

Mason’s work in net during shorthanded situations in the first three games was all of .714. So the Flyers apparently killed penalties a little better with Neuvirth in net in Game 4. Of course, they were shorthanded for only 2 minutes, 28 seconds of that game.

Asked if staying out of the box was a major factor in that fourth game, Hakstol said, “Well, that’s part of it. It’s certainly an important part of it.

“I would characterize it more as we won the specialty teams battles,” Hakstol added. “And that’s the only night we were able to do that. So some nights there is going to be a lower number of minor penalties called each way. And you have to find a way to come out on the right side of that. Other nights, things are called a little more closely. For us, we still can’t give those guys the easy two-minute-minor-for-slashing type penalties. We can’t give them those and expect to come out on the right side of the specialty teams battle on any given night.”

It would figure the Flyers thus were better prepared and more disciplined in Game 4 than they were in the other three, and thus played a lot better . ... But why quibble?

All that really mattered by Friday was how they were going to play in Game 5.

“You don’t change your approach,” Hakstol said. “Our approach hasn’t changed for a long time, so it won’t. It hasn’t changed in the last few days. Our approach has been the same. I don’t know how you characterize it. You characterize it as loose. There are a lot of ways to characterize it. We’ve been ready to play.”

••• NOTES >> Although 20,000plus people in Wells Fargo Center saw young center Scott Laughton crated off on a stretcher Wednesday night, Hakstol wasn’t about to say anything more about Laughton other than he’d spoken to him. It was reported through the Flyers Medical News Services that Laughton left the hospital the other day and tests were negative. (He’s OK, but you didn’t hear that from me) . ... After serving a onegame suspension for checking defenseman Dmitry Orlov from behind in Game 2, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was back in the lineup Friday night. “(Bellemare’s) a big part of our team,” Hakstol said. “He along with his line have been real important to us, 5 on 5. Belly as a (penalty killer) has played a big role. It will be nice to have him back in tonight. He should have fresh legs and hopefully he can help us.”