As Patrick Star once said, “I can almost taste it.” Well, the Philadelphia Flyers can almost taste the thrill of a playoff series victory against the Pittsburgh Penguins after winning Game 3 of their first round matchup, 5-2.
The Flyers now own a 3-0 series lead on their cross-state rivals. This is the first time they’ve had a 3-0 series lead in the playoffs since 2012, coincidentally also against the Penguins in the opening round. The Flyers would go on to win that series in six games.
Wednesday night’s contest saw the Flyers both give up the first goal and trail for the first time in the series. Evgeni Malkin finished off a beautiful passing play while on the man advantage to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead early.
“I think it was just important to stay under control and, you know, overall I thought we played a good period,” said Flyers captain Sean Couturier. “They got a power play goal, which happens, but I thought our special teams responded pretty well after that. It’s just, you know, power play, special teams, it happens. We’ve got to get over it and like I said, we responded pretty well.”
Despite the early Pittsburgh goal, the Flyers were still a thorn in the Penguins’ side and didn’t make things easy as a raucous Xfinity Mobile Arena crowd made for a bloodthirsty environment. The building really came to life after Garnet Hathaway and Sidney Crosby became mixed up at the faceoff dot in the Flyers’ end. Hathaway appeared to just barely, albeit carelessly, clip Crosby with his stick. In response, Crosby went down like a sack of potatoes to try and nurse a call from the officials. While Hathaway did eventually get charged with high-sticking, the Penguins captain was jeered all the way to the box as he was called for embellishment.
Rick Tocchet’s group stuck to the game plan and after physically frustrating the Penguins, they rattled off three second period tallies in a six minute span before finishing the pesky visitors off in the third period with two more goals.
The physicality was a major factor in Game 3, highlighted by Travis Konecny’s and Bryan Rust’s spat that resulted in a roughing double minor for Rust while Konecny and every other Flyer and Penguin received a singular minor penalty, leading to a Philadelphia power play that was capitalized on thanks to Trevor Zegras.
“There’s some scrums and some things that, you know, you want to hold your ground, and there’s sometimes you’ve got to be savvy and kind of see the temperature,” said Tocchet. “And there’s some refs… some refs won’t tolerate stuff and they get antsy, too. So you learn from that experience I think, and we’ll learn from it.”
By all accounts, that particular bundle of chaos ignited the Flyers, and Zegras’ power play goal was the beginning of a furious Philadelphia rally in the second period.
Rasmus Ristolainen then joined in on the fun and beat Stuart Skinner through the five-hole just 3:48 after Zegras’ goal.
Nick Seeler then capped off the incredible Flyers surge just 2:12 later as his goal set off a tidal wave of elation through the sea of orange in the crowd that could’ve made the arena implode.
Pittsburgh had an opportunity to cut into the lead on the power play in the third period, but Crosby slid the puck past an open cage through the crease as Rust crashed the net and banged up Dan Vladař, who was favoring his arm afterwards.
The Penguins would eventually make it a 3-2 game on an Erik Karlsson one-time blast that squeaked through Vladař on another power play.
Just about three minutes later, after previously being denied on a breakaway, Noah Cates pulled off a sweet move at the goal mouth and beat Skinner to restore the two-goal cushion for the Flyers.
“We’ve been talking about the low play more on the power play,” said Tocchet. “We haven’t had a lot of those low play goals this year and we really talked about it, worked on it in practice. It’s nice when you work on stuff and then you have a video session and it works. You know what I mean? So hopefully it gives them some confidence, but I do like the fact that they knew they were going to go low but they kind of waited a little bit… patience to get the low play. But yeah, that’s a skill move by Noah. Beautiful goal for us.”
Skinner would soon head to the bench for an extra attacker, but Owen Tippett sealed the deal with an empty netter for the home team to make it 5-2.
Wednesday’s game was the epitome of the Flyers-Penguins rivalry. Nastiness, tenacity, and filled with goals. It was about as close of a throwback to 2012 as you could’ve asked for, and the Flyers are now just one win away from eliminating the Penguins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the most unlikely fashion.
3 STARS OF THE GAME: 1) Sean Couturier – PHI, 2) Trevor Zegras – PHI, 3) Rasmus Ristolainen – PHI
UP NEXT
The Flyers, and perhaps their brooms, will host Game 4 against the Penguins on Saturday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 8:00pm ET.
