Bryzgalov responds for Flyers

PHILADELPHIA -- Flyers center Danny Briere took one look at teammate Ilya Bryzgalov on Sunday and had the feeling his team's goaltender was right where he needed to be -- Planet Bryz.

Ilya Bryzgalov

Goalie - PHI

RECORD: 4-2-0
GAA: 3.89 | SVP: 0.871

It hasn't all been fun for Bryzgalov in his first season in Philadelphia, and certainly wasn't a lot of fun in the first five games of this series -- he entered with a 4.54 goals-against average and .848 save percentage in the first five games -- but when the Flyers needed him most, Bryzgalov was there.

"You can tell before a game when he's focused," Claude Giroux said. "He's in a bubble, does his own thing. It's weird to say, but in the warm-up we know if he's going to have a good game. He was ready to go. He was our best player on the ice [Sunday]. He gave us a chance to win."

Bryzgalov said he didn't feel much differently for Game 6 than he had in any previous game in the series.

"I just came to the game just like every other day," Bryzgalov said. "You just have to play and stop the puck and help the guys win the game."

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Helping win the game was the Flyers' 40 blocked shots, led by seven by defenseman Erik Gustafsson and six each by blueliners Matt Carle, Andreas Lilja and Matt Carle.

"Blocking 40 shots, I'm not sure I've seen that," coach Peter Laviolette said. "I'm sure it's happened a bunch of times, but usually it's in the 20s. Guys were sacrificing themselves and clearing out the front of the net. And what did get through -- and there were lots of good chances by Pittsburgh -- our goaltender stood really tall today. He was focused.

"Bryz was phenomenal. They move the puck extremely well. There's going to be chances and opportunities against and Bryz was dialed in today. He played a phenomenal game for us."

It was Bryzgalov's first playoff series win as a full-time starter, following a seven-game series loss two years ago with the Coyotes and a four-game sweep last year. However, he said he took no personal pride from finally advancing in the postseason, instead handing out credit to everyone from the secretaries in the team office to the training staff to the coaches.

However, his teammates were more than willing to heap praise on their goalie.

"We're going to live and die by Bryz," Scott Hartnell said. "If he plays anything like he did [Sunday] throughout this next round, we're going to keep moving on."

"Sometimes you just feel there's something [like] there's an aura around you," Briere added, "and there was definitely that there around Bryz."

Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK