Last Sunday afternoon, the Flyers advanced to Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, by beating out The Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 of the first round by 5-1.
This was the Penguins last chance to redeem themselves, for if they won this game they could have forced a Game 7. However, the Flyers did not allow this to happen, as they played like it was their own last chance. Prior to the game, Scott Hartnell stated that they “need to play like it was game 7.” Apparently the rest of the team got into this mentality as they started off the game strong.
Claude Giroux scored the first goal 30 seconds into the first period, and this goal gave The Flyers the early lead that they needed. This lead was extended towards the tail end of the first period, when Scott Hartnell scored a power play goal assisted by Giroux and Jakub Voracek.
The second period started in a similar manner, since Erik Gustafsson scored early in the period assisted by Giroux and Coburn. This gave the Flyers another one-up on their rivals, but the Penguins were not about to go down within a fight.
The Penguins were finally able to get onto the board in the second period with a power play goal scored by Evgeni Malkin. This cut the Flyers lead in half by 2-1, but despite the Penguin goal, they were not able to come back to beat out the home team. The Flyers continued to show their dominance in the game through a 4th goal scored by Danny Briere, which gave the home team a better lead over the Penguins at 4-1.
Even with a three-goal deficit, The Flyers knew they had to step it up to maintain this lead in the last 20 minutes left in the game. The Penguins were going to be working just as hard, since this was their very last chance to go be able to go further in the playoff rounds.
The Flyers’ goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov knew this well as he continued to stop pucks for his team in the 3rd period and did not let any more pucks past. The Penguins did get an opportunity to cut the Flyers lead in half when they scored a second goal.
However, the call went under review when the video replays indicated that the puck had been pushed out of Bryzgalov’s gloved hand. After it had been reviewed by the officials in the arena and the war room in the NHL Toronto headquarters, the goal was disallowed because the goaltender had already made the save so the whistle should have been blown to indicate a stoppage of play.
The Penguins tried to hang on and at least score a few more goals, but the Flyers did not allow them any chances to do so. The Flyers finished the game off strong with a 5th and final goal while Fleury was on the bench, so rookie Brayden Schenn got an empty netter goal.
As the Flyers finished off their series, the other Eastern and Western series were still wrapping up, so they had to wait on what team they would face up against next. The other Eastern Conference series all went into Game 7s so they had to wait even longer to find out who their opponent won.
After the New Jersey Devils defeated the Florida Panthers, it was determined that the Flyers and the Devils were supposed to be matched up in round two. This series kicked off on Sunday afternoon.
Deanna Vasso is a fourth-year student majoring in English with a minor in creative writing. She can be reached at DV670502@wcupa.edu.
Fri. Jul 26th, 2024
