Penguins/Flyers: Pens show some holiday spirit, easily down Philadelphia

Sidney Crosby has a four-point night, the Pens easily beat the Flyers. All is well in Penguin-land for one day at least on the night before the NHL’s Christmas break

Pregame

Ryan Graves is back in the lineup for the injured Owen Pickering and the Penguins are ready for their rivals with this lineup.

First period

The goal scoring exhibition gets going early Bryan Rust leans into one from way above the faceoff circle. It’s the Pens’ first shot on goal and Samuel Ersson isn’t ready for it. 1-0 Pittsburgh early.

The Flyers score to answer (third shot if you’re keeping track at home). Egor Zamula skates up from his defense position without getting pressured too much and allows him to rip a puck past Tristan Jarry. 1-1.

Rickard Rakell stays hot with a goal — but wait, Philadelphia challenges the goal for being offside. They’re right, goal is wiped off the board.

But then Rakell scores again, and this time it can’t be taken away. 2-1 Pens.

Pittsburgh gets the first power play of the night and turns it into the first power play goal of the night. It’s Michael Bunting from right in front of the net to tap it in at the far post. 3-1.

A minute later, history repeats when Cam York goes to the penalty box again and the Pens score on the power play again. This time it’s Sidney Crosby setting up Phil Tomasino for a 4-1 lead. It’s Crosby’s third assist of the night, tying him with Mario Lemieux on the all-time leader board.

Great early period, the Pens score early and often on some nice plays by them, but not exactly against a top flight goalie. Almost all Pittsburgh early.

Second period

The Pens put it in cruise control way too early, the Flyers get nine out of the first ten shots of the period. That includes two goals, Bobby Brink makes a nice centering pass that Noah Cates quickly fires into the net.

Next, Sean Couturier drives down the ice. Kris Letang stays in good position and keeps him to the outside. Couturier just slings a puck to the net and Jarry can’t keep it out. Not a great goal to give up. The lead is down to 4-3.

Bunting is able to extend the Pens’ lead and give them a bit of a cushion back with only a little more than a minute to go. Evgeni Malkin gives Bunting a nice pass and Bunting uncorks a half clapper that Ersson’s got nothing for. Not the finest night for goaltenders. 5-3

Third period

Aleksei Kolosov replaces Ersson for the start of the third period.

Rakell hits the crossbar and narrowly misses another one.

Noel Acciari crushes Ryan Poehling with a big but clean hit. The Flyers look like they forget about the purpose of the game chasing Acciari around for a little bit, which is cool too.

For as much ripping on Jarry for not making saves earlier, he is great in the third period and keeps the Flyers at bay.

Philadelphia pulls the goalie with just under four minutes to go. Crosby opens up the first Christmas gift with an empty net goal to extend the lead to 6-3.

But the fun continues. Rookie Matvei Michkov somehow gets whistled with 18 seconds left for hooking in a game that is already decided. John Tortorella, understandably, isn’t very pleased by that development. He’ll like what happens less, Ryan Shea shoots wide of the net, Blake Lizotte collects the rebound and slams it home to add merriment to the home crowd. 7-3 final.

Some thoughts

• Don’t see it as bad goaltending early on, look at it as the netminders being in the Christmas spirit and handing out joy to anyone who wanted to shoot the puck tonight.
• It’s absolutely incredible to think that Crosby has as many assists as Mario Lemieux. It won’t be too long on points either, Sid is now 88 behind Lemieux there. (Which also means he’s 88 goals behind Lemieux at the moment, since they’re tied in assists). It would seem for all the world 20-25 years ago that Mario’s Penguin records would be sticking around for a long, long time, (if not forever). Then along came the Cole Harbour kid. The levels Crosby is reaching is unbelievable stuff.
• After finishing 31st in finishing the last two regular seasons (and being 31st through late-November), here’s to hoping the Penguins unknowingly stumbled into a long-lasting well of scoring on their chances at abnormally high rates. The head knows they will likely revert back into their true talent levels sooner or later, but it’s too fun to imagine a prolonged stretch where this team isn’t actually good good but keeps finding ways to put pucks in the net to prop them up and look good. (Note, how all Mike Sullivan grumbling has been dulled to a minimum in the last few weeks, he’s remembered how to coach suddenly when the team scores on 15+% of their shots!)
• It’s also funny since the same players are the ones scoring over and over again. Rakell, Rust and these days Bunting. Every once in a while Lizotte, Tomasino and Letang. It’s not even a team getting hot, it’s a few players here and there.
• As the FSG broadcast said, tonight was the first game in 353 matchups against the Flyers that Pittsburgh took 0 penalty minutes. Shocking. The Flyers had only taken two minor penalties (both by the same player, Cam York) before Michkov got rung up at the end for whatever he did to piss a ref off.
• Pens up to points in nine straight (7-0-2) against their biggest rival. Always can walk a little taller when at least that area of the team is going well at the moment. And through some holiday magic and shooting sorcery (not to mention the Rangers completely imploding before our very eyes), Pittsburgh heads into the Christmas break in 4th place in points AND points percentage in the division.

With that, we break for the holiday. We’ll have some content to tide you over in the next few days but here’s for some best wishes to you and yours from all of us at Pensburgh! Nothing kicks the Christmas season off quite like the Pens easily beating the Flyers.