They were taking an absurd amount of penalties in the first three games and paid for it dearly.
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Holtby, who saved 91 of 93 shots he faced in Games 1-3, made 23 saves.
Neuvirth, 28, temporarily unseated Steve Mason as Philadelphia’s starter for the early part of the season. That last happened in 2010 when the Flyers rallied to win four in a row to beat the Boston Bruins and eventually reached the Stanley Cup final.
But Flyers coach Dave Hakstol turned to him to try to turn around the series.
The excitement waned and the desperation eventually kicked in. They held Washington to 0 for 2 on the power play. “I was just finding my rhythm and I think from the second period, I started feeling really good”.
There were some tense moments in the third period for the Flyers, who saw the ice tilt in their direction after T.J. Oshie scored at 2:38.
In Game 4 for the Flyers, it was win or go home for the summer. I feel for him. “It was a good game for us”.
Andrew MacDonald scored his first career playoff goal early in the second period to match the offense in one game that the Flyers had mustered in the first three games of the series. The Flyers moved the puck with precision, crowded Holtby a little and trusted Gostisbehere, who has come to their rescue plenty of times this season, to help change the direction of the series.
For the remainder of the first, Caps could not seem to generate many high-danger scoring chances against Neuvirth, while at the other end, Braden Holtby had to be thankful for a few opportune bounces that went his way on some risky pucks to escape the frame with a 1-0 lead. See you Friday night in Washington. The Capitals entered Wednesday 8-for-17 with the man-advantage.
A scary injury caused a brief delay in the first period. He went down in a heap face-first and was immobile for several minutes. The Flyers eventually brought out the stretcher and wheeled him off the ice late in the first period.
Rookie defenceman Shayne Gostisbehere scored six minutes into the game on a shot from the point, giving the Flyers their first power-play goal of the series on his 23rd birthday. “We really hope as a hockey club that he’s all right”. “It’s good to know we can be successful playing the way we want to play”. “We’re going to go out there and score a goal and see how they like it”.
The series has been a contentious one, Philly noted, with Flyers center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare given a one-game suspension for a hit on Dmitry Orlov in Monday’s 6-1 win for the Capitals.
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“We’re not too anxious about digging out a 3-0 hole right now”, coach Dave Hakstol told the team’s official website. Colin McDonald, called up Sunday from the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, was inserted into the lineup in his place and played on the fourth line. Washington didn’t practice on Thursday, but Orpik didn’t skate with the team on Tuesday or Wednesday. You could practically hear Alex Ovechkin leading a Pamplona-like charge inside a pin-drop quiet Wells Fargo Center.
