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Pens/Flyers Recap: Meh

The Penguins suffer yet another important injury then lay down and pretty much die as much as the Flyers playoff chances with a poor showing in a Sunday night matchup.

By Hooks Orpik
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Pregame

A couple of changes- David Warsofsky is recalled and in for Chad Ruhwedel. Scott Wilson is back from injury and in for Josh Archibald and Matt Murray is back in the net.

1st period

Early on Radko Gudas does something stupid (if you could imagine that) and Matt Cullen makes them play on the power play. Steve Mason just loves to end up on goals on his back, just totally out of commission.Taking a foolish penalty PLUS getting a helpless looking goalie? Who said the Flyers weren't in full form?

Cameron Gaunce gets into a fight with human pile of trash Brandon Manning. Tempers boil over? Or Gaunce take exception to Manning for the hit on Guentzel at the Stadium Series? Either way, meh.

Conor Sheary leaves the game, it appears he blocks a what looks like a pass with his hand and oh boy here we go again.

The Flyers strike in the last minute of the period, a neutral zone turnover for the Pens and Jordan Weal skates in on his off-wing and snaps a nice shot by Murray. 1-1.

Shots 12-7 Pens in the period, but that's a bit misleading since shot attempts are closer at 18-15 Pittsburgh.

2nd period

Philly scores again after Valtteri Filppula bumps Murray in the crease than later tucks the puck in the net. The Pens challenge but the refs don't agree that Filppula interfered with the goalie enough to affect the play, which OK why even have a crease then? Another weird call but that's what happens when you leave it up to an official decision. 2-1 Flyers.

Shots go 11-6 Philly on the period. Pens pretty much phoning it in at this point, unfortunately.

3rd period

Flyers make up for going on 5 years without a playoff series victory by making it 3-1 early in the 3rd period with Dale Weise finding a loose puck and burying it.

Wayne Simmonds sends a last second elbow into the head of Brian Dumoulin. Reaction type of hit but pretty dirty. Dumoulin gets checked out quickly in the room but is able to return, luckily.

Flyers push it to 4-1 and this goose is cooked.

Don't even think the Penguins have had a legit decent scoring chance since the 1st period. Finally Patric Hornqvist breaks in alone and snaps a shot high past the poorly positioned Mason. Really a shame Pittsburgh couldn't get more shots on this goalie, would have scored a bunch more.

Gudas scores an empty net. Gostisbehere tacks on another just for shits and gigs. Good for him.

Shots end up 33-27 PHI on the game.

Some Thoughts

  • Pretty crappy game all-around. The air out of the Pens balloon seemed to come out in the absence of Sheary. Yet another injury and the depth is obviously past the point of being tested at this time.
  • Is it like a rule that Sullivan has to burn his timeout by challenging goals on the most marginal of calls? Seems like lately he's been leaning on that a lot. After the Pens lost the challenge on the go-ahead goal to make it 2-1 it seemed like all their life was zapped and they pretty much laid down and died. Not sure if that was really the case, by psychologically as a player it can't be good to have all momentum broken for a lengthy review, maybe think you will get a call reversed (why else would the coach challenge it?) and then deal with the deflation of the decision that the call stands.
  • Laughably, the next 2 days will be the first two day break since March 6-7, and the last until the end of the regular season on April 9. Hopefully it's put to good use.
  • Best part of tonight? No more seeing the Flyers until at least next October. 7 more months of not having to think about their brand of irrelevance. They won't have won the Stanley Cup by then either.

Road doesn't get any easier, Wednesday night the Pens host Chicago before going to NYR for a Friday game.

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