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PHILADELPHIA — It seems the Pittsburgh Penguins are still in need of a little more maturity.
While they have grown remarkably despite their youthful makeup, the Penguins could use more experience when it comes to the killer instinct. For the second NHL playoff series in a row, they failed to close the deal in an elimination game.
In the last round, they let the New York Rangers off the mat in the fourth game of their series — and so it went last night in the fourth game of the Eastern Conference final. The Penguins let the Philadelphia Flyers outplay them by a wide margin in the first two periods and then could not complete a comeback in the third, despite a furious effort that produced two goals, both by Jordan Staal. This allowed the Flyers to avoid elimination with a 4-2 win.
The Penguins' lead in the best-of-seven series is now 3-1 and the series goes back to Pittsburgh for the fifth game on Sunday at 3 p.m. (EDT).
It might be rather presumptuous to say the Penguins are in need of maturity, since the loss was just their second one of this year's playoffs. But last night's performance was their weakest of the postseason.
"They had a good first period, we didn't and that was the difference," Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said.
For the first time, the Flyers were allowed to establish their game. They fore-checked the Penguins enough to establish some traffic in front of Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-André Fleury. And they were much more physical than they were in the previous games.
Much of the credit for this has to go to the Flyers themselves. Despite missing their top two defencemen to injuries for the second game in succession, they got the puck moving through the neutral zone. This allowed them to hit the Pittsburgh blueline with speed and bottle up Penguins stars Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa, leaving them a frustrated group by the end of the night.
The last minute of the game emphasized the dislike these interstate rivals have for each other. There was one fight and then a scuffle between Crosby and Flyers forward Mike Richards.
"There's no question it's a heated battle, the Battle of Pennsylvania," Flyers winger Scottie Upshall said. "It's playoff hockey. You've got to play rough out there.
"We knew we had to throw the body around, make some good clean hard checks. You can turn a game around like that."
The Flyers also tightened up two areas that had been costing them dearly in this series. Every time they made a mistake, the Penguins would pounce on it. And they were taking too many penalties. Last night, there were no mistakes of note for the Penguins to capitalize on and the Penguins were given just three power plays, none of which they scored on.
At the same time, the Flyers made the most of their opportunities. They scored two power-play goals in the first period to take a 3-0 lead that stood up into the third.
And where the Penguins scored two quick goals early in the third game of the series to take the 19,972 screaming fans at the Wachovia Center out of the game, the Flyers turned those tables, too. They scored twice in a little more than three minutes midway through the first period to keep the atmosphere pumped up.
"Scoring a goal early really gave us a lot of energy," Upshall said. "From there, we didn't turn the puck over, we made simple plays, got the puck deep and finished our checks. Then it was like things started happening for us."
The Flyers also received improved performances from a couple of important players, centre Daniel Brière and goaltender Martin Biron. Brière scored his first goal of the series and he was noticeable all evening, while Biron was outstanding for the first time since the previous round of the playoffs.
Flyers head coach John Stevens moved Brière from centre to left wing on a line with Mike Richards and Scott Hartnell, which paid off. Brière was effective from the start. He scored by following Randy Jones's shot to the front of the net, diving between two Penguins defencemen and batting in the rebound.
"I think [Brière] gets the puck a lot from Richie [Richards]," Stevens said. "Richie is more of a puck-possession guy and Danny can hit the holes.
"Marty [Biron] looked like he was really sharp seeing the puck. He looked like he read things like he had previously [in the playoffs]. We knew we were going to need him to be good and he was."
