Pregame
The Penguins mix it up a bit, the old second line is back, Elmer Soderblom is back, Ilya Solovyov and Arturs Silovs makes his Penguin playoff debut in a do or die situation.
The Flyers don’t have any changes from what has gotten them the 3-0 series lead.
First period
Pittsburgh gets off to a good start, the period is defined by each team taking an offensive zone penalty and the results of the power play. Anthony Mantha keeps up his inglorious playoff run by headed to the boc, but his team kills it off.
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A short time later, Denver Barkey gets his stick up on Sam Girard to send the Pens to a power play. It’s short work, Sidney Crosby wins the faceoff to Erik Karlsson then slips into a quiet area. Karlsson feeds Crosby the puck and it’s a trickier-than-it-looks one-timer for a puck coming at him at a weird angle. The whole thing throws Dan Vladar off and the puck sails by him into the net.
Blake Lizotte takes a post-whistle penalty late in the period, the Pens steer it home. Shots are 9-5 PHI, one of those shots coming from 180 feet away that wasn’t a real shot at all so that doesn’t tell the whole story. Solid opening 20 for the visitors.
Second period
Pittsburgh kills off the rest of the Lizotte penalty and then Rickard Rakell takes advantage of a Vladar miscue behind the net, wins the puck back and knocks it into the abandoned net. 2-0 game.
The Pens get another chance off the rush, throwing the puck to the net. Mantha can’t quite get it in and a desperation kick by Christan Dvorak to angle the puck away from the goal-line saves the day.
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Next shift, Evgeni Malkin gets tripped and the Pens get another power play, and for the first time in the series look like they have the Flyers on the ropes. They can’t take advantage of the opportunity, and soon after Solovyov takes a false step back to the ice instead of changing and Pittsburgh gets rung up for a too many men penalty, which they kill.
Pittsburgh is the next to get a power play after Crosby gets dumped, nothing happening and they even give up a breakaway that Silovs makes a big save on. The momentum is slipping away and the Flyers catch Pittsburgh on a long shift after the power play. Trevor Zegras makes a pass across the crease that Barkey just has to keep his stick on the ice to knock it in. 2-1 game with 4:20 to play in the period.
Sanheim hits the crossbar from right in front of the net in the last minute. It’s now the Pens who are on the ropes and they get bailed out by the horn for intermission.
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Third period
Garnet Hathaway elbows Karlsson in the face during a wall battle, Karlsson stops playing and gives Hathaway a few uppercuts and they both get called. On the 4v4, the Pens get a huge goal. Crosby fights off a check and kicks the puck to Kris Letang. Letang has the extra space to keep walking up in the zone, so he takes it. Then he takes a big slapper from the top of the circles in the middle of the ice and hammers it home. 3-1 game with 15:33 to go in regulation.
The Flyers get a pretty quick answer to close the gap. Travis Konecny finds a soft spot and gets a pass from down low that he one-times over Silovs’ shoulder. 3-2, 12:57 to go.
The Flyers push continues but their aggressiveness opens up some opportunities the other way for the Pittsburgh rush offense to finally make an appearance. Crosby and Bryan Rust get away on a 2-on-1 but Rust’s forced pass doesn’t connect. The best thing for Pittsburgh is they get what any team with a lead wants in the third period – a long stretch between whistles where lines roll, play continues and time drains away.
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That’s too good to be true and is with about 5 minutes to go as the game gets bogged down with a few stoppages, TV timeouts and each team icing the puck. Philadelphia pulls Vladar for an extra attacker with just under two minutes to play. Connor Dewar ices the puck, then gets redemption to chase it down a little later and deposit it into the empty net. 4-2, 56 seconds to go.
The Pens win and survive to play another day.
Some thoughts
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Crosby only won 2/8 faceoffs in the first period. One of the wins was the most important, starting the goal sequence. One major sign of Crosby’s struggles has been in the faceoff circle, entering tonight winning only 45.5% of his draws (coming off another regular season of winning 55% of them).
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The Penguins had such a great opportunity in the second period to if not put the game out of reach then at least build themselves a comfortable lead up 2-0 and getting a couple of power plays. It was back to the ‘bad’ power play of making poor decisions with the puck and static player placement very nearly coming back to bite them. It’s a small wonder it didn’t. They were playing with fire big time in a careless way.
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And yet, for the scoreboard, each team scored in the second period. It wasn’t truly an even period, with the Flyers controlling play and building a lot of momentum throughout, but it was one that was survived. Silovs deserves a lot of credit for that, the other point that stood out is that Vladar coughed up a cheapie. That downplays the effort that Rakell had to show to earn it, but the Flyer goalie was practically flawless through the first three games. It had to be nice for the Pens to see that the guy who had been shutting them down is still capable of making a major mistake.
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Silovs came up with a great performance. He had to be really good in the second period and he was just that. Thought some of his rebound control slipped after giving up the second goal but despite a little shakiness he kept the puck out from there on out. This was the first game the Pens had better goaltending in the series (which says more about Vladar’s down night than anything else) and it showed in the result.
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Vladar’s play at the moment might be the biggest x-factor on the ice. Was he just rusty from missing two days practice? He out and out created a goal against with a misplay, which isn’t going to happen every game. Even then, that was the only gave up one 5v5 goal he gave up today (the Pens scored at 4v4 for the first time all season on Letang’s goal, got Crosby’s PPG and an empty net goal). On one hand, it’s not like Vladar was in full collapse and he may well shrug off his issue and find better form in Game 5. On the other hand, he showed some cracks today and Pittsburgh forced the door open enough to keep their season alive. Vladar’s status (not like he’ll miss a game now) and maybe his form is one of the more intriguing storylines to watch for in the next one.
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The Pens still had 21 missed shots, equaling the number of shots on goal. It’s not like they’ve figured everything out and are rolling. Egor Chinakhov had five shots miss target just by himself, in a tough development. If this series is to be extended much longer they’re going to need him to start firing true much sooner than later.
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Special teams had to be a battle the Pens won tonight, and they did. The PK going 3/3 was very strong. The power play was 1/3, which looks nice enough even though it belies how close they came to giving up a goal and possibly sinking everything as a result. But, it is a results-oriented business and they took care of business – which counts for something. Something big in this case, a Game 5.
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In a must win situation, the Pens had no choice but to ride Karlsson (26:48 icetime), Wotherspoon (23:49) and Letang (23:19). Solovyov only took 13 shifts for a total of 8:45 played, he wasn’t bad but even despite the mental lapse to cause a too many men situation this was a game that the Pens clearly were going to lean on their top guys all the way.
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Mantha took another penalty and again had a tough go. He played the third least minutes of any Penguin forward, joining Soderblom and Ben Kindel as the lowest TOI forwards. The ‘fourth’ line of Dewar-Lizotte-Acciari is essentially the third line, especially in situations late in games for needing a reliable defensive group to help protect a lead.
Well, it won’t be a sweep. The Pens now get to go home and have to focus on just winning more shifts, periods and hopefully another game to extend the series again and really make it interesting.
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