Penguins defeat Flyers in Game 4 of East 1st Round to stay alive

PHILADELPHIA -- Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell each had a goal and an assist, and the Pittsburgh Penguins extended their season with a 4-2 win against the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Saturday.

"It's only one, but I think it gives us some life," Crosby said. "That looked more like our game. It's probably taken us three games to look like ourselves a bit. I think that's something that we can definitely build on. Obviously going home, it doesn't get any easier. With every game in the series, it's more difficult. But we've got some life, and we got to take advantage the opportunity of going back home now."

Kris Letang and Connor Dewar also scored for the Penguins, who are the No. 2 seed from the Metropolitan Division. Arturs Silovs made 28 saves.

Silovs started in place of Stuart Skinner, who was between the pipes for the first three games of the series. It was Silovs' first Stanley Cup Playoff game since Game 7 of the 2024 Western Conference Second Round with the Vancouver Canucks against the Edmonton Oilers.

"Exciting opportunity," Silovs said. "I think playing playoffs is most fun you can ever have. I've been waiting for a whole season to get to this point and I think I'm enjoying every minute."

Denver Barkey scored his first playoff goal, and Travis Konecny also scored for the Flyers, who are the No. 3 seed from the Metropolitan. Dan Vladar made 17 saves.

Philadelphia leads the best-of-7 series 3-1. Game 5 will be at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh on Monday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS, SN-PIT, NBCSP).

"If somebody told you guys before the series we were going to be up 3-1 after four games, you guys wouldn't believe us," Vladar said. "So we are good. Nothing's changing for us. Still being positive in here. ... They are a really good team. It's not easy to win four in a row against a team like that. We're fine here."

Crosby put the Penguins ahead 1-0 at 14:24 of the first period with a power-play goal. On the ensuing face-off after Barkey was called for high-sticking, Crosby won the puck back to Erik Karlsson at the left point, then one-timed a return pass from the hash marks off Vladar's glove.

Rakell made it 2-0 at 1:03 of the second period. Vladar lost the puck in Rakell's skates behind the net, and Rakell dove in front to backhand it into an open cage.

"We know we're not going to score many pretty goals," Rakell said. "We're going to have to score some goals on second efforts, rebounds, all those kind of ugly goals that you have to score in the playoffs. That's just going to have to keep coming."

Vladar said it's a play he makes all the time in practice.

"It was my bad of hitting him," he said. "You do it in practice, you do it 20 times, 20 times it goes past him, and this is just what it is. Nobody's perfect."

Barkey battled for position at the front of the net and redirected a Trevor Zegras centering pass to make it 2-1 at 15:40.

Letang made it 3-1 at 4:27 of the third period. With the teams skating 4-on-4, Crosby pulled a puck off the boards on the left side of the Flyers zone and kicked it to Letang, who skated between the circles and scored on a slap shot through a Crosby screen.

"It's all those little details sometimes," Letang said of Crosby's plays on the goal. "It's not the crazy play or the pass finding a guy back post. Sometimes it's little details, like picking the guy, give me a lot of time to pick my shot. It was an amazing play. Just shows you how much IQ he has on the ice, and he knows what to do at every moment in every situation."

Konecny buried a one-timer from the right face-off circle to cut the deficit to 3-2 at 7:03.

"I thought we didn't hold onto pucks, we were throwing pucks away too much," Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said. "The second half, we started coming to our game. I don't think it's a ton of adjustments. More of, I think we got to dig a little bit more. I didn't see much digging early from some guys, and we got to make sure that right from the beginning, we got to dig off the bat."

Dewar scored on an empty net for his first career playoff goal and secured the 4-2 final at 19:03.

NOTES: Crosby recorded his 16th career playoff goal against the Flyers and passed Wayne Gretzky (15) and Evgeni Malkin (15) for the most against the franchise. ... Crosby collected his 68th career multipoint playoff game. He ranks third in NHL history behind Gretzky (108) and Mark Messier (77). ... Silovs became the second goaltender in franchise history to make his Penguins playoff debut in an elimination contest and earn a win, following Frank Pietrangelo (Game 6 of 1991 Division Semifinals). ... Crosby (204 points; 72 goals, 172 assists) passed Jari Kurri (202 with Edmonton) for the third-most playoff points with a single franchise in NHL history, behind Wayne Gretzky (252 with Edmonton) and Mark Messier (215 with Edmonton). ... Pittsburgh defenseman Ilya Solovyov had two hits in 7:33 of ice time in his playoff debut. ... The Penguins are 3-4 in Game 4 when down 3-0 in a series, with all three wins coming against the Flyers. They also did in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals in 2012 and 1997. ... Philadelphia defenseman Cam York had an assist for his first playoff point.