The Penguins managed to close the Philadelphia Flyers’ lead to one, but that was all they could manage, and the Flyers won, 3-2.
The Flyers got off to a 3-0 lead. They scored first on a rather strange-looking first-period goal by Danny Briere (who nearly lost track of the puck before firing from about 30 feet). Then they got a second-period goal by Wayne Simmonds on the last few seconds of a power play after a penalty by Joe Vitale, as Claude Giroux made a beautiful pass to Jakub Voracek to set up Simmonds. Minutes later, there was another from Scott Hartnell.
The Pens' James Neal put in a wrist shot on the power play (with assists from Evgeni Malkin and Matt Niskanen) with six minutes left in the second period, and Malkin (assisted by Brooks Orpik and Arron Asham) brought the Pens within a goal. But Pittsburgh couldn’t close the deal, despite 14 shots in the third period.
Ilya Bryzgalov had 25 saves for the Flyers; Marc-Andre Fleury had 26 for the Penguins.
The Pens (16-8-4) now travel to face the New York Islanders on Saturday night.
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