PHILADELPHIA, Pa – For the second year in a row, the Philadelphia Flyers lost a playoff series to the Pittsburgh Penguins, but this time the Flyers lost in six games as the Penguins won Game 6 in Philadelphia in come-from-behind fashion 5-3.
Philadelphia did everything they wanted to do in Game 6 but win the game. The Flyers got off to a three-goal lead early in the second period, but just as they had done over the past month heading into the playoffs, the Flyers defense crumbled under the pressure and allowed an opponent to take over a game in the second half of the game to blow a game.
Late in the first period, Mike Knuble pounced on a rebound in the slot after Mike Richards initially stole the puck from Maxime Talbot, went in on net and put a shot on Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury that came back to Knuble who put the puck past Fleury for a 1-0 with 2:12 left in the first period.
Joffrey Lupul gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead with 1:21 remaining in the period when Claude Giroux broke down the left wing on a three-on-two break, pulled up just inside the Penguins blueline, and saw Lupul alone on the right wing, fed it over to him and Lupul blasted a shot past Fleury.
Daniel Briere got his first goal of the playoffs at the 4:06 mark of the second period when he skated across the Penguins blueline and fed the puck over to Simon Gagne who was along the left wing boards. Gagne quickly gave the puck back to Briere who snapped a wrist shot in the upper right corner of the net for a 3-0 lead.
Than, 29 seconds later, during a mad scrabble in front of the Flyers net, Ruslan Fedotenko saw the puck under Martin Biron’s pads and shoved his stick under the pads and pushed the puck into the net to get the Penguins on the scoreboard.
The goal quickly energized the Penguins who scored again 1:57 later when Gagne made a bad cross-ice pass on a three-on-two in the Penguins zone. Tyler Kennedy got the puck and staked down the left wing on a two-on-one with Fedotenko. Kennedy shot the puck but defenseman Adam Eaton was trailing the play and hit the puck in midair past Biron to get the Penguins to within one.
The Penguins tied the game at three when Bill Guerin skated from right to left on a three-on-three and backhanded a shot towards Biron who, instead of catching the puck with his glove, swatted the puck upwards with the intention of catching it on the way down. Sidney Crosby however beat Biron to the puck by hitting the puck in midair and putting it past Biron for the tie at the 16:59 mark. The Penguins outshot Philadelphia 20-9 in the period.
The Penguins came out in the third period and quickly put the Flyers behind the eight ball when Evgeni Malkin dropped a pass back to Sergei Gonchar who was at the top of the right face-off circle and blasted a shot past Biron for a 4-3 lead for Pittsburgh.
From then on the Penguins went into a defensive shell and shut down the Flyers the rest of the game, rarely giving the Flyers any real hope the rest of the game in allowing only five shots. Crosby would eventually put the Flyers out of their misery and with an empty net goal to seal the deal.
The Penguins will now wait to see who their next opponent is. If the New York Rangers defeat the Washington Capitals, the Penguins would face the winner of the New Jersey Devils/Carolina Hurricanes series. If the Capitals come back to win their series, their next opponent would depend who wins the Devils/Hurricanes. If the Devils win, than the Capitals would play the Devils and the Penguins would take on the Boston Bruins, but if Carolina wins, the Penguins would take on the Capitals.
Contact the author at Brian.Jennings@prohockeynews.com
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