Penguins/Flyers Recap: Pens spanked again, fall 6-1 in Philadelphia

The long and misery-filled path to end the season continues for Pittsburgh, getting out-classed big time by their rivals

Pregame

The Penguins get Bryan Rust back in the fold from the injury and sickness that had him miss the last few games. Ryan Graves is back to his perch as a healthy scratch, Alex Nedeljkovic back in the net.

First period

The average Grzelcyk/Karlsson disaster sets up the first goal for the Flyers on their first shot of the game (the ol’ Jarry special!). Erik Karlsson steps up to win the puck but fails to do so, then Matt Grzelcyk is also over-eager on the step-up. Philadelphia works it around and Rasmus Ristolainen hammers the rolling puck by Nedeljkovic. 1-0 PHI early.

Anthony Beauvillier whacks a guy in the face with a stick, can’t do that but the Pens manage to get a penalty kill.

The Flyers strike again and we get our first “you’d like to get a save there” from the friendly announcers. Which, yeah that’s true, Nedeljkovic gives one up to the blocker side. 2-0 Pens.

Not much exciting, Evgeni Malkin almost snuck one by goalie Sam Ersson but it didn’t look on target to trickle in and a Flyer scooped it away anyhow. Other than that, nothing positive going on for Pittsburgh in the early going.

Second period

Kris Letang heads to the box early in the second but Pittsburgh gets another kill.

Some nice passing springs Philip Tomasino for an open rush to the net. He’s able to deke to the backhand before running out of room and gets the Penguins on the board with a nice goal. 2-1 game.

Pittsburgh gets a power play, Letang has a shot deflected that clicks off the outside of the post and that’s as close as they get to scoring.

The Flyers pad their lead, the Pens have numbers back but allow plenty of space for a cross-ice pass and a one-timer by Tyson Foerster. 3-1.

Noah Cates scores his second of the game with 1:05 to play. 4-1.

The bad times continue 10 seconds later the Flyers score again. P.O Joseph is back in position but unable to do much to defend against a pass to the crease that pops up and off of Bobby Brink and in the net. 5-1, yikes.

Ugly stuff, the Flyers pour it on at the end of the period and the Pens are limping home already.

Third period

Bryan Rust takes an offensive zone penalty on the first shift of the third to show that somehow, yes, this can get even more painful. Pittsburgh kills it off.

Evgeni Malkin gets tripped to allow a Penguin power play, Malkin owes Nedeljkovic a dinner for making a save on a d-zone turnover.

But the generous Pens can’t get out of the woods. Vincent Deshairnais gets his outlet pass picked off, Joseph can’t recover and bumps into Danton Heinen to see the Pens give it away. A couple quick passes later and Joseph is hung up hopelessly in the wash and it’s an easy goal for Owen Tippett. 6-1.

Enough damage done, the Pens scrape out with a 6-1 loss.

Some thoughts

• The Pens mixed things up in the second period. The top-four flipped to separate the Grzelcyk/Karlsson pair, Cody Glass jumped places with Danton Heinen as well. It’s not exactly Mike Sullivan flipping the Tkachuk brothers around the lineup like he was last week but the tinkering continues.
• A proof that making changes don’t always mean making improvements, Joseph/Karlsson fared even worse by seeing two goals go in the net in the first five minutes they played together. Where have you gone, Marcus Pettersson? Regardless of who is out there the Pens’ defensive ability and personnel is an ugly, ugly sight right now. (Unless you’re an opponent doing prep work watching video for an upcoming game, then it must be pretty appealing).
• Tomasino has only played 31 games with Pittsburgh this season but it seems like he’s got more than eight goals so far, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s since the Penguins only have a handful of double-digit goal scorers (and only three with 15+) to skew things for what’s been one of the more productive players this year.
• Moneypuck’s expected goal total when the Flyers scored their second goal: 0.7. Aside from Nedeljkovic’s strong stretch a while back the Pens have been allergic to getting saves this season. The weak defense puts the goalies in position to fail but they’re having extreme difficulties doing their part of the equation as well.
• It was probably a “why bother feeding him to the flames” situation, but would have liked to see Joel Blomqvist start the third period. He could have had some mop up duty and build some confidence and had an on ramp to get the start Thursday with a little bit of confidence against the Flyers team (who let’s not forget scored three goals on 20 shots on Blomqvist right before the break). Might as well try and build for something with the opportunity to play the same team again, right? The Pens opted differently, which I mean for as many goals as they were bleeding out tonight it’s difficult to criticize the decision to not get too cute and just try to get back in one piece without potentially getting the rookie burned in what could have been a difficult situation to jump into tonight.
• Hopefully some more changes will be coming, now that the new defender Vladislav Kolyachonok has had some practices he should be getting in the lineup at some point. Joseph was on ice for four of the goals against and often in the worst of ways. Graves must have been counting his lucky stars he was spared for the night.
• Breaking out the microscope to search for a small victory, the PK was 3/3 tonight. It was only 3/5 entering the night since the 4 Nations break. Not much of a consolation.

Not much good to come out of this one, and the Flyers have to be all too happy to trek west 300 miles to get another crack at the Penguins on Thursday for the rematch.