By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury makes a third-period save on a shot by Philadelphia Flyers' Jeff Carter (17) in a first-round NHL hockey playoff game in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. The Penguins won 4-1.(AP)
Even in the pregame antics for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, fans were still reminded for their own safety that pucks may be propelled into the spectator area, but the standard Mellon Arena sellout might have been more at ease had the Penguins simply announced that no pucks could be propelled into the net behind Marc-Andre Fleury.
At least that was the reality until only 4:35 remained on the game clock, when Simon Gagne flicked in a meaningless rebound a few hours after the issue had been decided.
Fleury might not be the only difference between these similarly profiled teams, but he'll do until the playoff personalities of the Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers are fully developed. Judging from the almost desultory nature of Game 1, we are a long way from that.
The National Hockey League, for official bookkeeping purposes, identifies this best-of-seven turnpike summit as "Series D."
Is that for desultory?
Probably not.
Do they know something we don't?
Not terribly likely.
But in a playoff game memorable for little except perhaps for tying the postseason record for Most Total Syllables in the Names of the Referees -- Mike Hasenfratz and Don VanMassenhoven -- the separation between the confidence levels of Fleury and the guy in the other net was totally decisive.
Fleury stopped 26 of the Flyers' 27 shots and was the image of total self-assuredness; Philadelphia's highly suspect Martin Biron projected little but imminent panic. When Mark Eaton's 50-foot floater somehow wound up in the Flyers' net halfway through the third period, the Penguins' audience had little recourse but to serenade Biron with rich chants of "Marrrty, Marrrty!"
PITTSBURGH - APRIL 15: Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins taps the puck past goaltender Martin Biron #43 of the Philadelphia Flyers on the power play during the 2009 Eastern Conference quarterfinal game at Mellon Arena on April 15, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)If Eaton's goal, the one that made it 4-0 Penguins, was a little on the soft side, the Evgeni Malkin goal right before it was a 12-pack of Charmin double rolls. Unable to control an errant pass at the right of his cage, Biron let the biscuit leak to Malkin not 10 feet in front of him, and the NHL's leading scorer swept it into the cage with an elegant, looping backhand.
Of course, the Flyers were already in plenty of trouble by the time the third period started, mostly because Sidney Crosby and Tyler Kennedy had lifted the Penguins into a 2-0 lead in the first 40 minutes. When the Flyers trail after two periods, they're 4-23.
"We were able to get to the offensive zone and play the game we wanted to play," said Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, explaining the rather stunning difference between last night and the last time the Flyers were here, a suffocating 3-1 Philadelphia victory. "In that game, they got a power-play goal to go up 1-0 and then another power-play goal. When you do that, you get comfortable in what you're doing, and we just didn't allow that tonight. We got the momentum and we kept it."
Philadelphia got something and kept it, too. The Flyers brought the same inexplicable indifference to the postseason that they spilled all over the ice in the regular season choke-off Sunday against the New York Rangers, the one that cost them home-ice advantage for this series and sent them over the Alleghenies in the first place.
"I think the intensity of the playoffs and this game [was supposed to] go up a little bit," said Flyers coach John Stevens. "I don't think we went with it, at least not early."
The Flyers, most directly, were not very physical, not very precise, not even all that organized. Most nights -- mid-April or mid-January -- that will get you beat, and the Penguins were happy to oblige.
"We're pretty happy with our performance," said Eaton, emphasizing "pretty," and then he did it again. "It was a pretty well-played game. All around it was solid. We just capitalized a couple more times than they did."
That was my impression as well. It was pretty much OK, but it wasn't anything close to pretty. If you'd walked into it from a coma in mid-January, you'd have thought only that the playoffs must be months away. In spite of all that, the Penguins lifted themselves into position to grab this thing by the lapels tomorrow night in Game 2.
PITTSBURGH - APRIL 15: Matt Carle #25, Mike Knuble #22 and goaltender Martin Biron #43, all of the Philadelphia Flyers, can only watch as Evgeni Malkin #71 of the Pittsburgh Penguins scores a goal in the third period during the 2009 Eastern Conference quarterfinal Game One at Mellon Arena.(Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)"It's still hard to say what will happen," said Fleury, who likely cost himself a shutout when his tripping penalty left the Penguins short-handed for Gagne's goal. "I felt good, but, in the second period, I didn't see many shots [six]. We know that they're going to come back hard."
We do?
What we know most urgently might be that Fleury is now 16-6 lifetime against Philadelphia, and that if he's going to play like this and Biron is going to play like that, then we're going to see a repeat of last spring's Eastern Conference semifinal, won by the Penguins in five games in which the Flyers managed nine goals.
That's unless something develops. Maybe that's what they mean by Series D.
Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com. More articles by this author
First published on April 16, 2009 at 12:00 am
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