A lot of things went right for the Penguins in their Game 4 win over the Flyers. A handful of them:
- Sidney Crosby dug deep, embodying a ‘whatever it takes’ mentality on a two-point night
- Kris Letang scored a goal, and beyond that played well over 23 minutes
- Pittsburgh won the goaltending battle for the first time, thanks largely to Flyer goalie Dan Vladar coughing up a goal from behind the net but in no small part to Arturs Silovs playing his first game this playoff and performing very well
- The penalty kill was perfect, the power play was far from it but did score one goal
- Game sequencing mattered; the Penguins had a good start, scored first and never let the Flyers tie the game up again
Add it all up and it’s enough to earn another game.
There are still some problem areas, Anthony Mantha looks like he’s at half-speed at times and is a shell of the player who scored 33-goals this regular season. Egor Chinakhov (five missed shots last night) has not had a great series. The now 19-year old Ben Kindel
has not made many plays lately. If the power play keeps messing around then they will give up a back-breaking chance sooner or later. The team is not clicking on all cylinders but at this point they just gotta keep finding a way to make it happen.
Of course, no one does that better than Crosby. The captain set up what would stand as the game winning goal by Kris Letang by kicking the puck back to the defender, then helping the cause by driving to the net to help take away the goalie’s ability to see the shot while drawing a defender with him to give Letang ample space to work into a dangerous spot. It’s the kind of gritty, desperate effort the team needs. The creative pass draws in the attention but the play runs deeper than that, it’s what Crosby did after kicking the puck back that made a big difference.
“(Bringing the series back to Pittsburgh) was our only option,” Rickard Rakell said after the game. “And it wasn’t pretty a lot of times today. But we stuck with it. Obviously, it feels really good. It’s a huge win.”
The game didn’t have to be pretty for it to be effective.
“I think that looked more like our game. It’s probably taken us three games to look like ourselves a bit,” Crosby said. “So, I think that’s something that we can definitely build on.”
While that was team focused and not untrue, Crosby might as well have been talking about himself personally after only registering one point in the first three games. Getting a multi-point effort on the road from their captain was about a necessity for the Penguins to extend their season. Crosby got on track and now the Pens live to fight another day.
