Start Strong, Relax, Blow Lead, Repeat. Pens Lose.

Eastern Conference Quarterfinals: #4 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #5 Philadelphia Flyers

Flyers lead series 1-0

New recap format for the playoffs, critique as you wish:

Final:  Flyers  4  Pens 3 (OT)

Goals:

1-0 Pens, 3:43 1^st Period

- With the Sullivan-Crosby-Dupuis line out, the Pens put a lot of pressure on the Flyers deep in the offensive zone.  The puck gets back to Kris Letang at the point and he takes a shot which ultimately hits both Pascal Dupuis and Flyers’ defenseman Nicklas Grossmann.  Grossman can’t find the puck at his feet, but Crosby can and lifts a backhander perfectly over Ilya Bryzgalov for a 1-0 lead.

2-0 Pens, 7:49 1^st Period

- Kris Letang gets the puck from the defensive zone up to Jordan Staal who is rushing through the neutral zone.  Staal enters the Flyers offensive zone with Tyler Kennedy streaking down towards the slot with only defenseman Andreas Lilja between them.  Staal sends a bouncing pass over that gets past Lilja and Kennedy hits it perfectly to beat Bryzgalov for the 2-0 lead.

3-0 Pens, 19:23 1^st Period

- On a seemingly harmless play, the Crosby line is again chasing a puck behind the net in the offensive zone.  Sullivan gets to the puck and backhands it short side back to the slot as he skates behind the net.  Dupuis skates in front ahead of Grossmann and hits it where it takes a few bounces and trickles in the net past Bryzgalov to make it 3-0 very late in the 1^st period.

Doesn't count to the streak, but Dupuis is still red hot.

3-1 Pens, 6:22 2^nd Period

- Joe Vitale overskates a puck in the neutral zone and loses control of it.  Brayden Schenn picks up the puck and passes it up to Briere, who is offsides by a stride but the call is missed.  Brooks Orpik is out of position at the blue line and is stuck on the outside of Briere where he can’t get in his way.  Briere goes into the offensive zone with a partial breakaway and beats Fleury to cut the lead to 3-1.

3-2 Pens, 9:17 3^rd Period

- Danny Briere skates the puck from behind the net around the corner up the boards and turns to make a seemingly harmless shot on net.  Crosby has a full screen on Fleury though and the puck goes right past Fleury on an odd angle shot to cut the lead to 3-2.

Upper back contusion, eh?

3-3 Tie, 12:23 3^rd Period

- Brooks Orpik is in the box for a questionable interference penalty (maybe roughing, not interference, puck was there).  Jagr does a great job of bringing the puck into the zone and leaves it for Hartnell at the point.  Hartnell shoots it towards Schenn in the high slot, who redirects it past Fleury to tie the game.

4-3 Flyers, 2:23 Overtime

- Kris Letang and Tyler Kennedy miscommunicate on who will retrieve a puck in the corner and neither one clears the zone.  The puck ends up crossing across in front of Fleury where Letang again misses a chance to clear and Fleury cannot cover it.  The puck ends up getting down to Matt Carle, who finds a wide open Jakub Voracek on the backside of the net, uncovered by Staal who shoots it into a basically wide open net.  Game over, Flyers win.

Positive Takeaways:

- The first period was perfect.  The Pens dominated in puck possession, hitting, and obviously on the scoreboard with a 3-0 lead.  Philly was not ready for the pace that the Pens came out with, nor the crowd at Consol which was simply raucous to start.  The Pens even survived the usual turning point for the Flyers, which was Laviolette’s timeout.  They dominated every facet of the 1^st period from top to bottom. 

- Tyler Kennedy had a great game aside from that very last gaffe where he and Letang couldn’t decide who was going to chase that puck in overtime.  Aside from his goal, he was skating very hard to the puck and made some great little plays, like diving to clear a puck from the defensive zone.  His effort was easily the best on the team and his shots were spot on net.  TK showed up to play.

After harping on him all season, who cares if he plays like this in the playoffs.

- Despite allowing 4 goals in the end, Fleury made some fantastic saves, including a couple great chances from the slot and Jagr on a breakaway.  The Pens could have lost much earlier and much quicker with how they turtled from the 2^nd period on, but Fleury kept that one going to overtime at least (not that it matters anymore, no points for that sadly).

Negative Takeaways:

- The turnovers in the defensive zone were horrible as usual.  Fleury made some great point blank saves because of turnovers, especially by Martin and Letang around the net.  The Pens also failed to clear the puck at least 3 times where they tried to wrap it around the boards without looking at the fact that a Flyers forward was on the boards waiting for the puck.  The Pens simply became predictable in their own end and Laviolette’s team was looking for it.

- Special teams just didn’t do the job and that will usually equate to a loss.  The powerplay was 0 for 3 and the penalty kill was 0 for 1.  The powerplay again looks great on the rush but much worse once they have set up.  At one point, Letang and Crosby were a foot away from each other on the same point looking for a pass.  This powerplay set up still doesn’t work as a natural powerplay, it’s just so talented that it puts up goals despite itself sometimes.

- The defensive coverage in the slot and around the net was poor again.  The Schenn goal is tough to defend for the PK, so I won’t harp on that, but the Voracek goal to win the game was inexcusable and somewhat foreseeable.  The Pens got caught puck watching and that is what is happening to most of the defensemen in the slot when they blow their coverages.  Head on a swivel is a concept that has evaded this team over the past month.  Their D coverage in the 2^nd and 3^rd periods reminded me of a relapse to the Islanders games, which is a problem that should not exist for Game 1 in the playoffs.

Jagr all alone in front, I'm sure that's safe to leave alone all series.

Thoughts:

- One thing I took note of which surprised me was that when a defenseman is carrying the puck up, it has become very rare for a Pens forward to drop back in coverage for him.  I had recaps around midseason that praised the Penguins for covering back perfectly, but somehow that has disappeared.  The surprising part to me in this one was that it was Staal’s line that wasn’t covering (mostly when Martin or Letang carried).  If your best defensive forward line isn’t covering for the defensemen, how can you expect anyone else to.

- I’m starting to notice that most of the people who boo Talbot are the people who wouldn’t even be hockey fans had he not had the Carcillo fight and scored in the Finals for the Pens…ironic, isn’t it?

- Yes, Briere was offsides.  Yes, the Orpik penalty was a bit questionable.  But regardless, the Pens couldn’t maintain a 3 goal lead, or a 2 goal lead after the offside goal and they couldn’t kill off the one penalty they had.  Anyone who thought the Pens would escape this full game without a penalty after having 3 powerplays is crazy, that’s just a rarity.  Regardless of referee influence, the Pens didn’t execute when they needed to and that’s the reason for the loss, not the refs.

Complain all you want, this goal wasn't the problem.

- Not that Sid had a great faceoff night, but in terms of the powerplay, I do not understand why Malkin takes faceoffs and Crosby does not.  Crosby is the better faceoff guy in general and the powerplay supposedly moves so much that they could rotate to whichever positions they wanted.  I just don’t see why you have a worse faceoff guy in the circle when there’s another one at the point.  Let Crosby take the faceoff and then get back to the point.  (Actually, split the 2 up on the powerplay, but I’ll leave that one for another game)

- I don't understand the line matchups that Bylsma picked at all.  I felt like Laviolette was picking them to be honest. Couturier is the Flyers' best defensive center and Bylsma kept putting Malkin's line against him. I couldn't comprehend that decision at all.  Malkin seemed pretty non-existent throughout the game and I would say that is a big reason why.

- Best Pens: Kennedy, Dupuis, Fleury.  

-Worst Pens: Michalek, Vitale, Malkin

Keys to Game 2:

- Another quick start is necessary but the pressure has to be sustained.  A great first 20 minutes is worthless if the team won’t put any pressure on for the last 40 minutes.  The Pens need to understand (and hopefully learned) that no lead against the Flyers is safe.  The Flyers won over 40% of the games in which they were scored on 1^st, there’s a reason for that stat.

- Slot coverage.  I want to see a game where the Flyers do not get any 1 on 1 chances with Fleury from the slot or crease area.  Fleury is a great goaltender, but no goalie can survive the amount of unobstructed chances that the Pens give away in close.  Heads on a swivel, the Pens have to keep track of what is going on around the net.

Maybe you should have covered that guy Staal...

- Powerplay success.  The powerplay has to score to win.  The team had a chance to put the Flyers away for real with their PP opportunities but instead gave momentum to the Flyers.  In the playoffs, a failed powerplay is not just a missed opportunity, it is a massive boost for the opponent and the Pens gave the Flyers plenty of momentum to work with.

Flyers lead the Series 1-0.  Next Game: Friday, 4/13, 7:30pm.  LET’S GO PENS!