The Pittsburgh Penguins live to see another day after they secured a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on home ice to force a Game 6 back in Philadelphia.
It was another tightly contested battle between the two rivals, but the Penguins came out ahead after Kris Letang’s eventual game-winner took a funny bounce off the glass and Dan Vladař before going into the net.
The Penguins raced to a 2-0 lead off the sticks of Elmer Söderblom and Connor Dewar before the Flyers tied things up with second period tallies from Alex Bump and Travis Sanheim. Letang scored 2:06 after the tie and his goal stood as the game-winner for the second straight game.
Vladař made 18 saves en route to the tough luck loss, whereas Artūrs Šilovs earned his second straight victory, backstopping the Penguins with 18 saves.
FIRST PERIOD
Trying to stave off elimination, the Pittsburgh Penguins opened the scoring on their first shot of the night at the 2:45 mark. Anthony Mantha did a terrific job on the forecheck to beat Rasmus Ristolainen to the puck, before finding Söderblom all alone in the slot, as his shot beat Dan Vladař glove-high.
The period came to an end with each team going 0-1 on their respective power plays and the Penguins holding onto an 11-9 lead in shots going into the intermission.
The Flyers, to their credit, played a solid first period on the road, but had 22 shots either miss the net or get blocked, including 6 in the final 64 seconds of the period.
SECOND PERIOD
With the Flyers absolutely hemmed in their own zone, the Penguins raced to a 2-0 lead after Connor Dewar walked into the slot and fired a hard shot over Vladař at the 3:17 mark. For context, Travis Konecny was on the ice for nearly 2:15 before Dewar’s 2nd of the series.
Fortunately, the Flyers responded only 12 seconds later, after Alex Bump slid a shot off the rush through the arm of Šilovs. Coming into the lineup for his playoff debut at the behest of Matvei Michkov, Bump scored his first career post-season goal on his 4th shot of the night.
With just 4:54 remaining in the period, Travis Sanheim tied things up after his sharp angle shot deflected off the stick of Erik Karlsson and past Šilovs. With some sustained pressure, the Flyers defensive pair played pitch and catch before Sanheim launched the puck into a maze of bodies for his 2nd of the series.
Unfortunately for the Flyers the tie didn’t last long after a strange bounce off the boards turned into the go-ahead goal with 2:48 remaining. Kris Letang’s point shot was deflected by Bump, bounced off the glass, then off Vladař’s pad before he pushed it into his own net.
A back-and-forth period came to a close with the Penguins holding onto a 1-goal lead and a 17-14 edge in shots (6-5 in favour of Pittsburgh in the period).
THIRD PERIOD
The third period started exactly as you would have expected with very few chances, let alone shot attempts. Things could have taken a quick turn for the Flyers on the opening shift, but Vladař came up with a huge pad save on Bryan Rust, keeping things at 3-2.
As the period progressed, there was very little room for either team to make offensive plays. The Flyers were missing the net with a lot of their chances, whereas the Penguins went nearly 6 minutes without a shot at one point.
With just under 2 minutes to play, Vladař was pulled for the extra attacker. The Penguins had a couple opportunities to ice the game but Bump made a heads up play to break up a shot attempt and Sidney Crosby missed a wide open chance from the neutral zone.
Porter Martone had the Flyers’ best chance off the rush but his shot was steered aside as the Flyers could not close things out, bringing the series back to Philadelphia for Game 6.
