PHILADELPHIA — Rick Tocchet had preached calm all week. He’d tried to slow this train, tried to keep it on the tracks as it picked up speed, gained momentum, started to feel inevitable.
First came a series-opener that saw his young, hungry Philadelphia Flyers charge out of the gates and bowl over the veteran Pittsburgh Penguins. Two nights later, a follow-up that saw them double up, claiming a second in enemy territory. Then the Broad Street squad took the party back home, pushed the rival Penguins to the brink in front of raucous, chaotic Philly crowd.
Amid the revelry, Tocchet cautioned his Flyers not to overlook the team with whom he lifted two Stanley Cups a decade ago. Not to overlook the man who led them then, and leads them now.
“They’re not dead,” Tocchet had said earlier this week, after Philly swept both games in Pittsburgh. “We have to act like they’re not dead.”
Saturday night, under the Xfinity Mobile Arena lights, after most in this town had Pittsburgh already buried, the veteran Penguins stuck one hand out of the grave, through the dirt, and proved their former coach prophetic.
“I think that looked more like our game,” Sidney Crosby said late Saturday night, after the dust settled on a 4-2 Pittsburgh win that staved off elimination and forced a Game 5 in this first-round bout. “It’s probably taken us three games to look like ourselves a bit. That’s something that we can definitely build on.”
The captain’s fingerprints were all over the Penguins’ Game 4 effort.
For the second straight night in this Flyers barn, the hometown crowd was ruthless in its expression of ill will towards No. 87. But there was only so far the Flyers faithful could push the man who’s tormented them for two decades, who’s amassed more points against their club than anyone else in NHL history, before he pushed back.
For Crosby, on this stage, it was only a matter of time. The jeers, the chants, the unfiltered vitriol sent his way by this city for years — this is his oxygen.
“It’s always an intense environment,” he’d said of this building as the series shifted to Philly. “But you know, as a hockey player, those are the games you want to be in.”
Saturday night, he had the look of a man who wanted to be here. It started 14 minutes in, when Crosby dispensed with the artful passing the Penguins have clung to through three games, and sent a message to the opposition about how this night would go. The puck came to the captain near the top of the circle, Erik Karlsson floating a soft dish into Crosby’s wheelhouse — before anyone in orange could react, the centreman turned, dropped to one knee, and wired it with pin-point precision past Dan Vladar’s glove.
The building quieted, descended into groans.
The two sides traded goals in the next period — Rickard Rakell capitalizing on a miscue from Vladar behind the Flyers’ net, Denver Barkey finishing off a silky sequence from Trevor Zegras at the other end — before Crosby made his presence known again.
Four minutes into the third, the puck came to Travis Konecny on the wall in Philadelphia’s zone. Crosby careened into him, pinned the winger against the boards. The two battled, Konecny lodging the puck under his skate, until Crosby lured it out, kicked it to himself, and then booted it again to a waiting Kris Letang.
The blue-liner strode into the slot, loaded up, and unleashed a vintage slapper that blew by Vladar.
“It’s all those little details sometimes,” Letang said of the difference on the sequence, which wound up the game-winning goal after Konceny got one back himself later in the period. “It’s not the crazy play, or the passes, finding a guy back post — sometimes it’s the little details, like picking the guy, giving me a lot of time to pick my shot. It was an amazing play.
“It just shows you how much IQ he has on the ice. He knows what to do at every moment, in every situation.”
For the Flyers, it was clear from the jump that Saturday night had a different feel. After three games that saw the Penguins string together only brief sequences of offensive promise, the visitors came out in Game 4 and found their rhythm quickly, tapping into the fluid, free-flowing attacking style that made them one of the league’s most prolific offences during the regular season.
“I thought we were kind of letting them play their game a little bit,” Konecny said from the Flyers’ locker room Saturday night. “I just feel like we were maybe a little bit on our heels to start the game. That was the first opportunity for us to close out the series, so I don’t know if it was just a little bit mental, that we came out that way.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t move your feet,” his coach said post-game. “It seemed like a few guys were sluggish tonight, so we’re going to have to figure that out, get some energy there. … We had some individuals — I don’t know if it’s complacent — [but] we didn’t do the small things. You know, chipping the body, winning some puck battles.
“I think they were a little more desperate at times.”
If the Penguins’ desperation came through in their offensive revival, their calm and confidence manifested in Dan Muse’s gusty decision in the cage.
After starting two-time Stanley Cup finalist Stuart Skinner in net for the first three games in the series, and amid expectations that the coach would lean on Skinner in a high-pressure Game 4 — particularly given the veteran’s recent track record of closing a 3-0 series gap — Muse opted instead to turn the cage over to Arturs Silovs.
The 25-year-old delivered, turning aside 28 of 30 shots — including a few particularly dangerous late flurries — to secure Pittsburgh’s first win of Round 1.
“I thought he played great,” Muse said of his netminder post-game. “Made some big saves. As I said this morning, we have a lot of confidence in both guys. I’m really happy for him. If you look at his year, our year, we’ve gone back and forth basically the whole season. You get into the playoffs, and just the way he handled [not starting], the professionalism, the way he just focused in on his day-to-day, made sure that he was prepared.
“When his name was called, he was ready.”
“With the situation we were in, and a loud building like this, I thought he was really poised,” added Crosby. “When they got some chances short-handed there, where they could’ve got a lot of momentum, I thought he made some big saves to hold it off and to give us a chance to get back in it.”
Tocchet needs no reminder of Silovs’ potential to turn a series on its head. The Flyers bench boss was Vancouver’s coach when the young netminder was thrown into the post-season fire after both Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith went down with injury. Tocchet had a front-row seat as Silovs helped Vancouver close out Nashville in Round 1, and push Connor McDavid’s Oilers to seven games in Round 2.
“He wasn’t going to play,” Tocchet said of the unflappable Latvian. “Then Demko got hurt, and he was thrust in. He was the third goalie — he ran with it. So, he’s capable. He’s a good goaltender. We have our hands full with him in the net.”
And with these Penguins finally feeling themselves too, after missing an opportunity to snuff them out before they truly found their legs in these playoffs. The climb back to level ground is still steep for Pittsburgh, but the veterans have looked more dangerous with each passing night, building their game slowly against their young, high-flying opponent. And they know well how quickly things can change this time of year.
In the days leading up to this pivotal Game 4, Skinner spoke about the path that led his Oilers out of their 3-0 hole and into Game 7, about how quickly it turned, and spun, and reversed, after that first win. The Penguins will head back to PPG Paints Arena for Game 5 Monday hoping for the same.
“It’s only one, but I think it gives us some life,” Crosby said as the Flyers faithful filtered out of their arena Saturday. “Obviously going home, it doesn’t get any easier — with every game in the series, it’s more difficult. But we’ve got some life.”
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