Flat Flyers ripe for more lineup changes in Game 6 as ‘reverse sweep’ pressure mounts
They had the Penguins dead to rights, ahead, 3-0 in the series, but let up Saturday and Monday. More changes are coming. Porter Martone? Tyson Foerster? Matvei Michkov back on the bench? Stay tuned.
PITTSBURGH — The Flyers lost Game 5 against the Penguins in the first 30 minutes of Game 4, and now they’re in danger of becoming the fifth victim of a reverse sweep in Stanley Cup playoff history.
The Flyers didn’t poke the bear awake as much as they let the bear slowly regain consciousness, hit the snooze button three times, yawn, stretch, shake, and then casually walk away with a win Saturday in Philadelphia, then another here Monday, 3-2, on a weird goal that rewarded perseverance.
Unless things change significantly, Game 6 won’t be much different.
The Flyers scratched overwhelmed phenom Matvei Michkov and defenseman Noah Juulsen in Game 5. Now, after a second-straight effort that looked less like gritty playoff hockey than bad ice dancing, they’re not standing pat.
» READ MORE: Penguins pull series back to 3-2 with second-straight win over Flyers
Maybe Tocchet believes rookie Porter Martone is fading after a tough collegiate season and a grueling introduction to the NHL. Maybe he regrets replacing Juulsen with Emil Andrae, and flips them again. Maybe Tyson Foerster is flagging in his first playoff run.
After taking a 3-0 series lead and then scrambling to make the last two games respectable, the Flyers are looking for a spark.
Nobody’s sacred.
“We should be pushing back with forechecks, getting on people,” said coach Rick Tocchet, who, as a ˙hard-nosed, hard-hitting player, made a career of forechecking and getting on people. “You know, it seems like a lot of — I should say, a couple guys — they look a little sluggish. The [playoff] pace — it’s all brand new to them. So, I don’t know. We’ll talk tomorrow for the next lineup change.”
“We just need to dig a little bit deeper, play with a little bit more desperation, play a little bit harder,” said defenseman Travis Sanheim. “But I believe in this group, and look for a response back home.”
That’s the issue. That’s the worry.
Even when the Flyers gave their best Monday night it felt like the Penguins were the big brother holding off his angry little brother with one hand as the little brother flails away, landing no punches.
The Flyers lead the series, 3-2, but they have forfeited any hint of momentum.
So, where does this leave the Flyers? Where does it leave the series?
When the Penguins and their three over-38 stars traveled to Philly last week, they clearly had no interest in playing hockey into May. Are they invested enough to win Game 6 on Wednesday in Philadelphia?
“We’re playing good hockey, and you know we got to go in there and and find a way to win again,” said Sidney Crosby, who, even at 38, remains the best player in the series.
When the Flyers began this series, they did so with a zeal the club had not seen since 2010, when, as a No. 7 seed, they advanced to the Stanley Cup Final. That team was far more talented than this one, but this one is younger. Can the Flyers summon enough youthful zeal to put the Pens away on Wednesday?
Marcus Hayes alerts
“It’s taken us three games to look like ourselves,” Crosby said just before he left the Xfinity Mobile Center on Saturday.
They look like themselves now.
Crosby won his 100th career playoff game Monday in a career that includes three Stanley Cups in a span in which the Flyers have zero. He had two assists Monday, and a goal and an assist Saturday. He’s found his mojo.
» READ MORE: Flyers rookie Porter Martone blasted holes in his parents’ basement before becoming an NHL phenom
After three games of indifference, Sid the Kid is back to being his smug and confident self. He was that again Monday. The entire Penguins life force — Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and monstrous Anthony Mantha — were smugly confident.
They realized that, if any team was positioned to complete the fifth 0-3 playoff comeback in NHL history, it was this big, experienced, skilled Penguins club against a young, upstart, overachieving Flyers team.
The Flyers churned into the playoffs with a historic run that bled into the playoffs. Entering the weekend they were 21-6-1 since Feb. 26, counting their three playoff wins. That included a six-game winning streak.
Then, as Cam York said after Saturday’s game, they let up.
The Penguins on Saturday played with a bit more intensity than they’d shown to that point, but for the first half of the game the Flyers played with none, and the bear that had slumbered through Games 1 and 2 in Pittsburgh smelled blood.
The Pens generated more action in the first 20 minutes here Monday than they did in the first 120 minutes here last week, and that continued all night. The Penguins went about their business with less a sense of desperation than a sense of inevitability.
They realized they were the better team, and, if they just did the work, they would likely prevail.
The Pens went ahead 1-0 less than three minutes into the first period, then 2-0 just over three minutes into the second period.
Alex Bump, the Game 5 rookie replacement for Michkov, scored 12 seconds later to make it 2-1. Bump had four shots in his first 24 minutes this series. That was as many as Michkov’s had in his 240 minutes.
It was a savvy move from coach Tocchet. Bump has played 18 total games in the NHL. He has played two of them in Pittsburgh. Bump has scored six total goals in the NHL. He has scored two of them in Pittsburgh.
It was a brief, well, bump.
Sanheim tied it with about five minutes left in the second, after a heroic forecheck by Tyson Foerster and Travis Konecny, the latter of whom as demonically possessed all night.
But the Penguins’ relentless — not desperate, but relentless — pressure paid off in a fluky goal.
With less than three minutes to play in the second, Letang fired a shot high and wide to Dan Vladař’s left. It went off his glove, then off the glass … but it trickled back to the ice on the same line, lightly caromed off both of Vladar’s legs, and slid behind him for the 3-2 lead.
The Pens continued to control the play through the middle of the third period, then turtled up and made the Flyers chase the equalizer.
As the clock dwindled at PPG Paints Arena, you got the feeling that they never will unless they find a level they have yet to meet.
“There’s another pace in us,” said Tocchet, who emphasized an absence of cerebral hockey when it came to keeping the puck in the Penguins’ zone. “We were guessing too much. You know, the forecheck was guessing, instead of just going through a guy ... we were guessing, coming off our checks, a little bit more than we were in the first three games.”
So, to keep from doing what has only been done less than 2% of the time in NHL playoff history, the Flyers just have to play harder, faster, tougher, and smarter.
And tweak the lineup.
» READ MORE: Rick Tocchet proves Danny Brière and Keith Jones right as the Flyers reward fans and end their playoff drought
