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PHILADELPHIA –- Sidney Crosby had on a completely straight face when he insisted that the 3-0 series lead his Pittsburgh Penguins have in the Eastern Conference finals is not all that it appears to be.
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| The defense has made life a lot easier for Marc-Andre Fleury in the Penguins net. (Getty Images) |
Crosby was being diplomatic of course because the results of the series are a perfectly valid indicator of how the teams are playing. The Penguins have simply played on a much higher level than the injury-depleted Flyers from the outset. The Pens produced the timely scoring they've needed, received better goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury than Philadelphia has from Martin Biron, and most important, played the kind of shutdown defense that would make the New Jersey Devils in their trapping hey day proud.
But closing out a series in another team's building is another matter.
The Penguins are 1-for-2 in that regard in this postseason, beating the Senators in Round 1 before being forced into a series-ending Game 5 by the New York Rangers in the semifinals. So, even if they are playing nearly flawless hockey, the Penguins are not letting themselves think too far ahead.
"We can't afford to do that because winning a fourth game is always the toughest one of the series," Penguins forward Ryan Malone said. "We're going to have to be very focused because we know (the Flyers are) going to be desperate and putting it all out there, and we're going to be in a building that's very hard to play in."
True enough, although the Penguins helped themselves in Game 3 by scoring twice and taking the Philly crowd out of it. Still the intangible challenges to closing out a series remain, and they are what the Flyers are clinging to as they hope to stay alive and perhaps create the kind of comeback miracle that has happened only twice before in NHL history.
"We'll have the crowd and we won four games in a row in the playoffs against a really good Montreal team, so I think we've got to draw from that," said Mike Richards who has been the Flyers' best player in this series. "We've got to go play a full game and do what we've been talking about the last couple of days, and just play the game that we know we can play."
Of course that's easier said than done because the Penguins have given Philadelphia little room to maneuver so far. The Flyers have been generally outworked at both ends of the ice by the Penguins, and Philly's also been victimized on several occasions by mistakes and undisciplined penalties. But the Flyers' biggest problem has been their inability to create enough pressure or scoring chances in the Penguins end.
"We've got to shoot more, get more puck on Fleury because he looks too comfortable in net," Flyers forward Scottie Upshall said. "The rebounds are there, but we're not able to find them and we just have to be better."
To help facilitate that, Flyers coach John Stevens plans to shake things up a bit by playing Richards and Daniel Briere on the same line and moving Vaclav Prospal to his natural center position on another unit. Defenseman Braydon Coburn, who is part of the team's top blue line tandem but has been out since early in Game 2 with an eye injury, skated Wednesday, although he is unlikely to return unless the series goes longer.
And that's something the Penguins want to avoid.
"You never want to give a chance to get up when they're down," Malone said. "We've got to bring our hard hats and go to work because they're not going to lay down."
