If you were unaware, the NHL Playoffs are going on right now. There are four major sports in the United States, and all four saw some action last week. Baseball had regular season games, the NFL had its draft, and the NBA and NHL are in playoff seasons. I’ve covered a lot of NBA games, but I’m switching to the ice tonight. We have the Flyers looking to eliminate the Penguins in Game 5 of their seven-game set.
In order to get here, the Flyers went 43-27-12 for the season. They were pretty successful on the road this season as well. The team went 23-14-4 as a road team in the regular season, and they’ve already won two games in this series as the road team. I always like looking at the stats for hockey teams, and I find it interesting when a team is successful despite averaging about the same number of goals per game as they allow, and the same amount of shots allowed and taken per game. That’s precisely what the Flyers have done, but clearly it has led to success.
Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson talked about why the hostile environment his team will face in Philadelphia might be what they need after dropping the first two games of the series. (© Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images)
In this series, the Flyers won the first three games. In Pittsburgh, they were able to win Game 1 by a score of 3-2. In Game 2, they posted a shutout, getting the best of the Penguins 3-0. As the series shifted over to Philadelphia, the team was down early in the game before a fight broke out and woke up the Flyers. They ended up winning that game 5-2. Tonight, they will likely have Dan Vladar in the net. For the season, he went 29-14-7, good for the ninth-best record in the league. He did have a 2.42 goals allowed per game average, which was third in the league. He hasn’t allowed more than three goals to the Penguins in any game this series.
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Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby talks to a linesman during Game 3 against the Philadelphia Flyers, (© Eric Hartline-Imagn Images)
For the Penguins, they were the favorite in this series and have looked overmatched much of the time. Their season wasn’t that much different than Philadelphia’s, but they did have more points. At the end of the year, the team was 41-25-16. I always find the overtime losses interesting as well. That means the Penguins essentially ended the year as a .500 team. That’s pretty much what they’ve looked like through this series. The strength of the team was the offense with 3.54 goals per game, but they’ve only scored more than two goals in a game once.
Penguins make massive goalie change, adding an interesting twist to must-win Game 4
The lone win the Penguins recorded was in Game 4, winning 4-2. A lot of that has been attributed to the goalie change that head coach Dan Muse made before the game. He went away from his normal No. 1 and put in Arturs Silvos. He rewarded Muse with a strong performance, saving all but two of the 30 shots he faced. Oddly enough, he was worse at home this season than he was on the road, so this might not have been an ideal situation to put him in. However, this was the second time this season he faced the Flyers. In the regular season, he allowed just two goals in 34 shot attempts.
The Flyers have stunned the Penguins this series and have managed to keep their stellar offense off the score sheet as much as possible. (Eric Hartline-Imagn Images)
It is hard to say that the Penguins figured something out about Vladar. They still only scored three goals against him, but that was a welcome surprise after averaging just 1.3 goals per game in the first three games of the series. Pittsburgh has pressure on them to keep the series going, of course, but closing out a series is tough, especially on the road.
For the Flyers to win this game, they have to make Silvos uncomfortable and attack the net constantly. If they play back and patient, I think that favors the Penguins. For Pittsburgh, their offense is their key to success. I expect them to attack relentlessly. I like the over 5.5 in this game, and I do think the Flyers close it out. I’ll split a unit on the Flyers winning and the over 5.5 goals.
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