Musings: PHI 3, PIT 2 (Round 1, Game 1)

WHAT HAPPENED

The Pittsburgh Penguins opened Game 1 of the First Round with a 3-2 loss against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night, and now trail 1-0 in the series.

“Give them credit. They came in and they executed their game plan. We need to be better in terms of executing ours, and we got to be better, just in general,” Penguins Head Coach Dan Muse said.

SETTING THE SCENE

Both teams had different paths of making it to the playoffs to face off in the first round. The veteran Penguins battled through adversity down the stretch, namely an intense March schedule and key players out to injuries/suspension. They secured a playoff spot on April 9, with three games remaining in the regular season. They used some different lineups in those contests, as players dealing with injuries took the time to recover.

The Flyers, on the other hand, were one of the best teams in the league after the Olympic Break, tying for the NHL lead with 18 wins. They turned extremely low playoff odds into a playoff spot in Game 81 with their incredible surge.

FIRST PERIOD

The start of Saturday night’s matchup had exactly what everyone expected from the Battle of PA: plenty of physicality and chippiness.

“I mean, that’s going to be part of the series,” Sidney Crosby said. “I think we’ve got to stay out of it a little bit more, and trust that when they do it, when they try to stir it up, that they’re going to get penalized for it. But that’s more something that I think they’re looking to do.”

After hitting the post to start the game, Christian Dvorak bolted to the net with the puck. He got it over the line, but he bulldozed Stuart Skinner in the process, which led to the officials deeming it no goal.

The Flyers were able to get some more clean looks in on Skinner, who stopped all nine shots he faced in the first period. The goaltender, making his Penguins playoff debut after two straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final with Edmonton, just brought so much calmness and poise as his teammates tried to get their legs under them.

“Felt good right from the get-go,” Skinner said. “Amazing energy in the building. The fans were absolutely giving it their all. So, it was super, super exciting, and it felt good to get that feeling again of being in the playoffs.”

SECOND PERIOD

The Penguins didn’t manage the puck well at the blue line, which is dangerous against a team who’s terrific in transition. The Flyers got three odd-man rushes off of Penguin turnovers. Trevor Zegras, Noah Cates, and Owen Tippett were all denied by Skinner.

“Our blue line, we should control the puck a little bit, play deeper and try to focus, like, maybe a little bit more behind the net,” Evgeni Malkin said. “We give them so many chances.”

The Flyers kept pushing, and finally got rewarded. Skinner was completely screened when Jamie Drysdale put home a wrist shot for the first goal of the game.

The Penguins started to build momentum shift by shift after that tally. After a hard-working shift from Crosby’s line, the second line came over the boards, ready to produce one of their own. Rickard Rakell’s shot initially got blocked, but Tommy Novak quickly found Malkin, who snuck a shot through Flyers goalie Dan Vladar to even the score and give Pittsburgh a spark.

THIRD PERIOD

Unfortunately, that spark didn’t quite carry over to the first half of the third period. And exactly 10 minutes in, Travis Sanheim gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead. Seven minutes later, red-hot rookie Porter Martone added another when he sniped a shot for his first goal in the playoffs.

Despite allowing three goals on 20 shots, the statistics do not tell the full story. On Saturday, Skinner showed why he made it to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals.

“I thought he had a really good game,” Muse said. “Some of the chances that we're giving up, we shouldn't be. We have to be better in terms of just continuing to work in front of him. But I thought he made some big saves.”

With the extra attacker, Bryan Rust was able to pull the Penguins within one goal in the final minute of regulation. Mantha nearly scored on a power move to the net with just a few seconds remaining, but Vladar stayed poised and made the save.

BIGGEST TAKEAWAY

The Flyers were exactly as advertised. Going into tonight, the Penguins described them as a team who’s good off the rush, has skilled forwards, and can make life very difficult defensively. And that’s what we saw on Saturday night.

It was the exact opposite story for Pittsburgh. We didn’t see the team that finished the regular season with the best offense of the Sidney Crosby era, who plays relentless and structured across all 200 feet of the ice. They weren’t able to muster much of anything offensively, and were uncharacteristically sloppy with the puck.

While it’s a much tighter environment in the playoffs, the Penguins have to try and get back to their DNA as best they can.

"I mean, we played good all year long. We know how we play and we just, like, maybe nervous too much or we want (it) too much. We just not thinking a little bit, I think,” Malkin said. “Everybody wants to play good. I understand. But again, we have a couple bad turnovers. We not play good power play tonight. But again, it's just the first game. We understand, we not play (in playoffs) three years. Everybody, like, a little bit nervous, but we have a chance, for sure. We need to just play simple and a little bit better."

The team is scheduled to practice on Sunday as they regroup for Game 2 on Monday night.

“We’ve got smart people behind the bench, and smart people in this room,” Erik Karlsson said. “We’re already excited for game two. We knew that we weren’t going to win every game, so we just got to move on. We’ve got an experienced in here that’s lost many playoff games, and won even more.”