With a quick glance at the matchups set to make up the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, few pop off the page like the impending tilt between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers.
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Fleury got his first playoff shutout since last May, when his Penguins beat the Ottawa Senators 1-0 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. The Flyers could use defenseman Robert Hagg’s physicality.
“They got special players that make special plays”, Giroux said.
“I’m just excited to play here”, he said. Despite losing at home in Game 1, the Predators stormed back before losing in Denver; and finally taking the series in Music City with two straight wins.
After easing into the Stanley Cup playoffs schedule with three games on Wednesday, the National Hockey League goes full steam ahead with a quintet of series-opening clashes on Thursday. Given this lack of depth, and Pittsburgh’s strength on the power play, I think the Penguins should advance. Goalie Probables: The Flyers will be sending out Brian Elliott (23-18, 2.66 GAA) and the Penguins will counter with Matt Murray (27-19, 2.92 GAA). The Flyers played well down the stretch to get into the playoffs, but they showed in game one that they are just overmatched in this series, especially here at PPG PAINTS Arena.
Philadelphia returned to the playoffs this spring thanks in part to its resilience.
“Look at their goals: deflections, back-door tap-ins, batted from the air”, Flyers captain Claude Giroux said, in defense of Elliott. “A close loss feels the same as a lopsided one”. The Flyers are going to need something of a Charlie Work magnitude to right this ship and I don’t see Charlie’s fire burning in Dave Hakstol’s eyes.
“I don’t think we’ve played our best game or a full 60 minutes against Pittsburgh yet”, he told the Daily News.
This was a one-sided matchup during the regular season, with the Penguins winning all four games over their in-state rivals, beating the Flyers in regulation both times at home while prevailing in overtime in both games in Pittsburgh.
After Crosby scored for a 5-0 Penguins lead at 9:01, the Flyers pulled Elliott and replaced him with Mrazek. He plays almost 27 minutes a night for the Wild, so good luck. “You can probably apply that to a lot of our game”. The team has been forced to kill penalties just 6.0 minutes per game over their last 10 outings. If the Jets can do it twice in three days, they’ll have firm control against sloppy Minnesota.
Matt Cullen and Zach Parise staked the Wild to a 2-1 lead with goals 2:12 apart early in the third period, but Patrik Laine’s first career postseason score-a long-distance snipe past goalie Devan Dubnyk-evened the score at two at 4:51 of the frame. They have their own postseason demons to exorcise. Philadelphia hasn’t won a playoff series since it beat the favored Penguins in six sometimes chaotic games in 2012. Playoff series in back-to-back years made the Penguins and Washington dislike each other plenty, and they’d meet again in the second round if they advance this year. Having a crammed and raucous Bell MTS Place certainly helped.
Truth is, the 33-year-old Elliott is far from peak playoff form. “But we knew it wasn’t going to be easy”.
The Penguins swept the season series against the Flyers (4-0-0) and hope to carry that momentum into Game 1. The Kings will be without defenseman Drew Doughty for Game 2, suspended by the National Hockey League for an illegal check to the head of Vegas forward William Carrier.
All good things must come to an end, and for the Golden Knights, the clock will strike midnight on their Cinderella run.
“I’m not ready to say anything about lineups”, Hakstol said. We start off in regular-season point order, but our rankings will be adjusted after each day.
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In the eight games he played over the last six weeks, Holtby let in at least two goals in every contest, a record that can’t be trusted in the playoffs.
