Dan Vladař, Flyers take commanding 2-0 series lead behind their first shutout of the season

PITTSBURGH ― The Flyers are a freight train, and the Pittsburgh Penguins are standing on the tracks.

Philly went into Western Pennsylvania and left with a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series thanks to a 3-0 win in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference’s first round.

Porter Martone and Garnet Hathaway scored, the Flyers delivered several big-time hits, including Rasmus Ristolainen on Sidney Crosby in the first period, and Dan Vladař shut the door in the final frame.

Philly did not have a shutout in the regular season, but saved it for the postseason. They have now won five straight games dating back to the regular season.

After a banger, pun intended, of a Game 1, both teams once again brought the boom with the Flyers laying 28 hits in the first period and finishing with 48. Pittsburgh tried to turn it up in the second but had a total of 32.

And like Saturday, it was another first period without any goals as goalies Stuart Skinner for Pittsburgh and Dan Vladař for the Flyers stopped a combined seven shots.

But in the second period, the Flyers pounced.

Philly got the puck into the Pittsburgh end and went to work with Porter Martone first on the Ryan Shea ring-around, and chipping it to Christian Dvorak down the boards. Martone got it back after Dvorak was hit by Penguins defenseman Connor Clifton, before dumping it back down to Dvorak, who was now open.

The centerman carried the puck around the net, hitting the final member of the line, Travis Konecny, for a quick shot that went off the stick of Shea right to Martone, gliding down toward the left post. A right-shot, he twisted to get the puck into the net on the backhand for his second playoff goal in as many career games.

Later in the period, the Flyers doubled the lead with a “power kill.”

After limping across the regular-season finish line on the penalty kill, allowing eight goals across the final 23 times they were shorthanded over the final nine games, they have not just shut down the Penguins’ potent power play but have outscored them.

On Pittsburgh’s fourth of five power plays on the night, Rasmus Ristolainen cleared the puck, and the fleet-of-foot Owen Tippett raced down the ice, putting pressure on Stuart Skinner, who came out to play the puck. The goalie moved the puck around the boards, and with it looking like the Penguins were sleeping on the recovery, the Flyers winger was the first one there.

Then he improvised.

Facing some pressure, Tippett literally tipped it to himself as he pushed off Tommy Novak and then danced around three-time Stanley Cup champion Kris Letang. He fell to both knees in the process, got up — still in control of the puck — and pump faked before sliding it over to Garnet Hathaway for the tap-in goal.

Hathaway had one goal in 66 games during the regular season and now has four playoff goals in 33 career games. And he was the one who beat out an icing on the Flyers approximately a minute before Martone opened the scoring.

In the third period, it was the Vladař show.

Between Luke Glendening getting stoned by Skinner on a two-on-none shorthanded chance — he scored an empty-netter to seal the deal — and Tippett shooting wide on a penalty shot, the Flyers’ goalie was once again masterful as the Penguins pushed hard in the final 20 minutes.

experience

He made a toe save on a wide-open Sam Girard as he shot a ricochet of a Bryan Rust attempt off Travis Sanheim less than three minutes in after the Flyers started the period on a power play. Nick Seeler and Noah Juulsen gave him stick taps after that one.

Off a broken play, the Czech netminder then stopped a whipped backhand by Novak and a quick shot later by Egor Chinakov. There was a right-pad stop through traffic on Erik Karlsson and a shot by Sidney Crosby that went right off his arm. And during a Penguins power play, he kicked out a bouncer as the Flyers clung to a 2-0 lead.

Vladař finished with 27 saves.

Hathaway’s shorthanded goal was the first for the Flyers in the playoffs since Valtteri Filppula scored on April 20, 2018, against the Penguins in Pittsburgh. ... Defenseman Emil Andrae is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury, and Juulsen slotted in. He played in Game 82 but had been a healthy scratch for the previous five games and entered with two games of playoff experience, the last on May 14, 2024, when he was with the Vancouver Canucks.

The Flyers return home to host the first playoff game in front of fans since 2018 on Wednesday (7 p.m., NBCSP, TNT, truTV, HBO MAX).