Way back in the 1970s, the Bee Gees scored a huge hit with the song, Stayin’ Alive. One would almost expect the disco classic to become the Penguins’ anthem in the wake of their season-saving 4-2 victory over the Flyers in Game 4 last night.
Leading the way as he so often has during his extraordinary career, none other than Sidney Crosby. Shrugging off whatever malady might be afflicting him, our captain scored a goal and assisted on another. Emerging from the shadows, Arturs Šilovs stopped 28 of 30 shots. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
With Philly rookie Denver Barkey in the sin-bin for high-sticking just past the 14-minute mark of the opening period, Super Sid went to work. After winning a faceoff from Flyers ace Luke Glendening and pulling the puck back to Erik Karlsson at the left point, he curled toward the high slot.
EK65 held the puck for a moment to draw Glendening toward him, then slipped a return pass to Sid. In his patented, drop-to-a-knee style, No. 87 ripped a bullet past Dan Vladar to stake us to an early lead.
The Pens padded their advantage just 63 seconds into the second period. Bryan Rust dumped the puck in from the red line, forcing Vladar to venture behind his net to handle it. With Rickard Rakell approaching, the Philly netminder double-clutched. As the old saying goes, he who hesitates is lost. Rakell swooped in, picked Vladar’s pocket, then beat him to the front of the cage to tuck the puck into the vacant net.
HUGE goal, not to mention confidence booster for our Pens.
We held the 2-0 lead for the better part of the second period. Then Trevor Zegras put on the Ritz, to borrow from Mike Lange, and circumnavigated the Pens’ zone with some elusive skating and slick puckhandling before setting up Barkey at the doorstep at 15:40. In the process, paring our lead in half.
Cue Captain Fantastic.
Four minutes and change into the third period, Sid stole Travis Konecny’s lunch money, or more accurately, beat him in a puck battle along the boards before using his skates to soccer the biscuit out to Kris Letang at the right point. Like a fullback opening a hole for a tailback on a draw play, Sid again curled to the net to create traffic and confusion. Tanger dutifully followed Sid through the gap before torching Vladar with an absolute rocket from the high slot.
The comfortable 3-1 cushion was short-lived. Konecny made amends by beating Šilovs, bar-down, from the right circle, courtesy of a slick pass from Christian Dvorak.
Despite the turn of events, the Pens kept their collective cool. Settling into a 1-2-2 at the behest of coach Dan Muse, they frustrated Philly’s comeback attempts. Connor Dewar slipped in an empty netter at 19:03 to put the final exclamation point on a must-win and stave off elimination.
Stayin’ alive, indeed.
Puckpourri
With the victory, the Pens snapped a six-game losing streak dating back to April 11. In turn, snapping Philly’s six-game winning streak.
We held a slight edge in shot attempts (61-58), while our hosts had more shots on goal (30-21) according to Natural Stat Trick. Still, we seemed to do a better job on zone entries and exits and were more effective along the walls.
What a game by Sid when we needed him the most, especially the setup on Letang’s goal. There aren’t too many superstars who’ll stick their nose in to make a dirty play along the wall like he did and then drive to the net to create traffic. It reminded me of the play he made during the 4 Nations Face-Off against Finland last spring when he flattened Mikael Granlund at center ice before setting up the game-clinching, empty-net goal.
Colby Armstrong’s “most skilled grinder,” indeed!
Following a difficult first period, the Letang-Sam Girard pairing rediscovered their mojo. Each finished with a 70 or better Corsi and a 60-something xGF%.
The fourth line of Dewar, Noel Acciari and Blake Lizotte likewise did a bang-up job. Muse leaned on the trio heavily during the third period to protect our lead, and they came through with flying colors. In addition to a collective Corsi of 77.78, the trio had a sparkling xGF% of 85.92. Each earned a point on the empty-netter. Acciari (six) and Dewar (five) combined for 11 of the Pens’ 36 hits.
Muse deserves a ton of credit for rolling the dice on Šilovs. Flashing his form from last season’s Calder Cup run, Arturs played his best game in recent memory. In particular, he blunted several shorthanded opportunities by the Flyers.
As for Dan’s other changes? I thought Elmer Söderblom played very well (78.57 Corsi, 73.44 xGF%). Had to chuckle when an unidentified Flyer tried to bully the big guy in the corner. It was like watching a little kid shoving with all his might against a brick wall.
Egor Chinakhov was reunited with Evgeni Malkin, but the former dynamic duo produced no shots on goal and little magic. Ilya Solovyov was used sparingly (7:33 of ice time) and made his obligatory mistake, which led to a too-many-men penalty, but otherwise did okay.
We were 1-for-3 on the power play, with three man-advantage goals in our last eight opportunities.
The Pens did a much better job of keeping their cool and avoiding the extracurricular crap, although Garnet Hathaway was able to bait Lizotte and Karlsson into retaliatory penalties. Looking forward to the day when the stakes aren’t so high and we can deal with Hathaway as he so richly deserves (perhaps a personal visit from Boko Imama).
Although I hate to say anything nice about Philly, my goodness is Travis Sanheim a player. A marvelous skater with great instincts, the Philly defender initiated the play that led to Konecny’s goal.
Was there a more classless display than the Flyers’ goofy mascot, “Gritty,” beating up a faux Iceburgh before tossing him off the 200 level of Xfinity Mobile Arena? So typically Philly. As an aside, Gritty does resemble a number of ginger Flyers past and present, including noted villain Scott Hartnell.
It’s back to the ‘Burgh for Game 5 on Monday night. A comeback remains improbable but not impossible.
One game at a time, boys.
Go Pens!
