Penguins > Flyers: Malkin Shines

The equation above is simple. Flyers are a bunch of Goons. The Pens picked up right where they left off the last time these teams met, in Philly no less. Talbot wasn't there to shush anyone, but Malkin, Staal, Geurin, Golgoski and Kennedy took it upon themselves to quiet the crowd.

As the Google alerts come rushing in all I'm seeing there is stuff like, "Guerin and Golgoski lead Pens past Flyers." Don't get me wrong, each scored a goal and did their duty...Golgoski more so. But the real honcho of the night was Malkin. A goal and an assist and played like a beast. Being on the same line with Staal really seemed to show that chemistry they once had a few years back. This might be something you see Bylsma go to more often with the Talbot out of the lineup and Dupuis attempting to fill in.

Fanny Briere started things off on the wrong foot for the Flyers with a hooking call that lead to an Evgeni Malkin power play goal. [1-0] The goal FritoWill predicted should happen. Looked like Crosby got a piece of it but the officials gave it to Geno. This all happened before I got a chance to even fire up GameCenter, so I missed it...S.O.B.

Random Craig Adams fight. Always enjoyable, though nothing to tweet about.

Either way, great way to start the game. Though about 11 minutes later Fanny redeemed himself and ties the game. [1-1]. There isn't much more in life that irritates me more than seeing the Flyers score.

Anyway, just over 30 seconds later Staalzy takes a nice pass up the middle from Geno and shields a player to go top shelf against Emery. [2-1]. Staal played a huge game tonight. He's been a beast on the draw as of late.

Second period started off with some more scoring with Fanny getting another goal to one again knot it up after an early Kunitz penalty. [2-2]. Just over 3 minutes later the Flyers fourth line decided to quit playing hockey and Guerin finds himself alone in the Flyers zone. Money. [3-2].

 

Orpik stunned.

After a little back and forth in each end the Flyers felt it was time to squander the game themselves and score for us. Corburn was under a little pressure by Gologoski and fires one off Emery's skates. [4-2].Think the Pens fans are going to have to get an "EEEEEEEEEMERY" chant going December 15th for sure. And despite letting in 4 goals I thought Fleury played a solid game.

Near the end of the period Jeff Carter puts one through Flowers legs (what a line right there).[4-3]

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Brief interruption for some #letangsexhair for the ladies.

And we're back.

Perhaps the worst thing about the 3rd period was listening to Errey talk about Richards leadership. Still thinking it was probably a ploy of some sort, rather a hidden sarcastic moment. Either way the period was kind of back and forth. Pens did a great job at managing the puck despite a few key turnovers that almost lead to scoring attempts. The most rewarding moment of the period was watching Geno do one of his best Jagr impressions through the neutral zone, but he didn't finish. At the 8:37 mark we saw the grinders +TK put together a nice display of offensive prowess. TK slid one past Emery with a nice pass from Cookie. [5-3]


At that point the Pens played conservative hockey, just trying to keep the puck out of their zone and maintain clock management. Everything was working up to the 19 minute point where Philly pulled Emery and stole Fleury's stick that lead to Carter going up-high-blocker-side. [5-4]

Then the frustration set in for the Flyers. They had one decent chance to tie the game only to have Richards show all of his leadership at once and form-tackle Fleury. Ronald McHartnell decided to randomly yoke Letang up, shuffle him to the ground, and bite his finger. After which Pronger got in Kunitz face. Some penalties were handed out and that was it.

Final Score: Penguins 5 - Flyers 4. 

Posted in: Flyers,Penguins