Battling for their playoffs lives, the Pittsburgh Penguins are looking for their first home win in their first round series against the rival Flyers. Philadelphia took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission, after a back-and-forth twenty minutes of power play goals.
The Penguins looked frustrated throughout the first period, committing some unnecessary penalties in a game they knew would be called close. The Flyers opened the scoring with a Matt Carle power play goal, his first of the series. Carle threw a wrister to the front of the crease and the puck found its way past Marc-Andre Fleury and into the back of the net. The goal came in the last five seconds of the man-advantage as Philly made one last push into the zone and created some traffic in front of Fleury. Video of the goal:
The Pens would then pull even three minutes later on their second power play of the period with Steve Sullivan tallying his second goal of the series. Kris Letang, who manned the top of the box on the power play, fed Sullivan with a pretty pass to the weak side, and Sullivan buried it in an empty net before Ilya Bryzgalov could slide over across the crease. As the puck rotated, Pittsburgh's James Neal came streaking into the center of the ice, where Letang gave him a look and forced Bryzgalov to hesitate for a second, opening up the opportunity for Sullivan to bury it. Video of Sullivan's power play goal below:
But the Flyers would counter quickly after the Pens committed a couple silly penalties. With Evgeni Malkin already in the box, Craig Adams took a bad slashing penalty and it didn't take long for the Flyers to make the Pens pay. Philly won the face-off to start the 5-on-3, and then Kimmo Timonen made a nice skip pass over the stick of Brooks Orpik and Scott Hartnell immediately put it in the back of the net, less than ten seconds into the two-man advantage. It was Hartnell's first goal of the playoffs, after a prolific season of power play goals. It was the 11th power play score of the series for Philadelphia. Video of the quick strike below:
Dan Bylsma will look to limit his club's frustrating penalties and pull back to even in the second period. Bryzgalov has shown he can disappear, so the Pens bounce back quickly.
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