Flyers win 3-1, hand Pens first regulation loss of March

This is true. But Godard was out there as a reminder to Philly that if Cote wants to throw down then God will gladly respond. He’s done it all season. Unfortunately the Flyers are a one-sided, play-dirty team. They can score too. In other words, structuring Godard into the roster to take on a distraction like Cote or Carcillo plays against the Pens. Like you said.

Malkin was trying to do it all by himself. It’s frustrating to watch a guy sweep around two players and lose the puck on the third deke. I know the D was locking down Sid all day, but he could’ve found someone that was open if he has two or three guys hanging off of him.

Either way, Philly’s win was all about capitalizing on the Pens’ penalties and Biron’s sold play in net. No complaints here. Pitt was just outplayed.

I can’t stand them, but I’m willing to give the Flyers credit when they’ve got it coming. Philly went in with a simple game plan – stack the blue line so the Penguins can’t skate the puck in, and don’t worry about offense – that worked like a charm. There also seemed to be lots of pushing and chirping after the whistles, and that clearly rattled the Pens; witness the lack of discipline all day, whether it was Kennedy’s tripping Carcillo in the offensive zone, Gonchar’s double-minor at the end of the second, or Staal’s nasty unpenalized slash on Mike Richards. Without power plays, Philly doesn’t win that game.

The other thing that seemed odd to me, and that seemed like poor tactics on Bylsma’s part, was how heavily he leaned on his top players. It appeared on all our power plays that we played our top unit for the full 2 minutes (a REALLY long shift) each time, and it felt like Malkin in particular played about 50 minutes of that one. And it seemed to catch up in the 3rd: Geno in particular just looked exhausted. This may speak to your point about not having a legit 4th line when Godard dresses.

Either way, if the Pens expect to go anywhere this postseason, when they’ll see lots of this kind of defense, they really need to adjust to more of a dump-and-chase style, where they’re not trying to skate it in every time and the offense is built off of firing pucks on the net and crashing in after them.

Marty Biron, despite endless criticism that he’s a career backup posing as a starter, is doing a excellent job. Three straight wins between the pipes will likely make him their starting goaltending for the playoffs. Either way, I’m not concerned. The Pens picked them apart last year in the playoffs after not doing too well during the regular season against em. Perhaps this is just another example of that.