The Flyers were outshot 44-11 and are the first team to win a playoff game with 11 shots on goal since the Capitals on May 13, 1998, against Ottawa.
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Despite a strong final push late in the third period Sunday, the Flyers’ offensive shortcomings and the Capitals’ defensive size advantage worked to keep Philadelphia’s Stanley Cup drought going strong.
Since being inserted into the lineup with the Flyers trailing by three games to none, Neuvirth is 2-0 with a 0.50 goals-against average and a ridiculous.987 save percentage, carrying the Flyers back into the playoff series.
Neuvirth was on his game all night long, stopping a close-in shot by Karl Alzner early on and continuing the thievery into the third period.
Not these Capitals, and certainly not against punchless Philadelphia.
The winners of the Presidents’ Trophy in the regular season have advanced to the second round of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs after defeating the Philadelphia Flyers 1-0 on Sunday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center.
When the Capitals and Penguins begin their Eastern Conference series it will mark the first time Canada’s Crosby and Russia’s Ovechkin will clash since their memorable seven-game, second-round series seven years ago.
“He makes the whole play, I think”, Backstrom said of Ovechkin. We just couldn’t create enough.
Second Period-1, Philadelphia, White 1 (Gagner, Streit), 7:52.
Riding the momentum of Michal Neuvirth in net, the Flyers won two straight to force an unlikely trip home.
Neither team scored on their power plays.
“Neuvy stole that one for us and that’s all you could really say”. Oshie. “Obviously, we want the win, first and foremost”.
“We’ve been saying it all year, it’s a different group”, Holtby said.
“You don’t like to see a player go down like that, especially when he wasn’t moving and we weren’t too sure what was going on”, Giroux said. Now, the pressure shifts to Washington, which has a history of playoff failure that the organization is trying to shake. The Flyers won game four 2-1 as Neuvirth made 31 saves on 32 shots.
The Capitals’ PK manhandled the Flyers’ power play from the series’ start. And then on the ensuing faceoff, Washington defenseman Matt Niskanen got his stick into the midsection of Wayne Simmonds in front of Caps goalie Braden Holtby. The Flyers missed both shots with a two-man advantage.
The Wild raced to a 2-0 lead after just over five minutes of the first period, but were pulled back to 2-2 before going 3-2 up.
“I know I can play better”, said Giroux, who has only one assist and is a minus-2 in the series. Defensively, the Capitals are yielding 2.3 goals and ranking 3rd in penalty kill with 85.1 percent.
“If we don’t get through that, this building probably explodes”, Capitals Coach Barry Trotz said. “Holtby made some big saves and that was the turning point”.
How it happened: There is no doubt that Flyers goalie Michal Neuvirth was focused, but after shutting out the Capitals for a total of 106:21 (72 consecutive saves), Washington scored on Nicklas Backstrom’s one-timer at 8:59 of the second period that proved to be the game-winning tally.
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White said it’s not like Neuvirth hasn’t shown that kind of ability this season. I think we’ve reassured the fact that we know we can stay focused.
