In the early spring of 2018, the Pittsburgh Penguins were coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup victories in the two previous summers and were looking to go for the ever elusive three-peat, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since the early 1980’s when the New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup four times in a row.
The Penguins would ultimately fall short of this feat, losing to the Washington Capitals in the second round of the playoffs in six games. Before the series loss to the Capitals, the Penguins kicked off the 2018 Playoffs against their well-known cross-state rivals from Philadelphia.
The Flyers were coming into the postseason as a team that was rebuilding but had some young stars. Players like Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny, and Ivan Provorov were big parts of this new-look team that had enough speed and skill to give the Penguins fits.
Safe to say for the Flyers, however, the series didn’t start exactly how they were hoping.
The Penguins came out of the gate flying, jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first period.
In the next period, they didn’t let up, scoring two more, with Sidney Crosby scoring the second.
At 5-0, Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott would find himself out of the game, giving up five goals in 19 shots.
Crosby would continue his scoring touch into the third period, finishing the hat trick midway through the final frame, as Matt Murray would hang on to the shutout making 24 saves in the process, en route to a 7-0 win.
The Flyers would end up evening the series in Game 2, before the Penguins won the next two to take a 3-1 lead. The Penguins would fail to close things out in Game 5 at home, before closing out their rivals in a GOOFY Game 6 at the Wells Fargo Center that we will surely re-touch in a couple weeks.