Geoff JohnsonAfter stealing the first two games from Pittsburgh, the Philadelphia Flyers will try to put an even higher mountain to climb for the Penguins when they face them this Sunday at 3:00 PM ET at Wells Fargo Center.
As expected this series has been outstanding in terms of offensive side hockey and an 8-5 victory for the Flyers in game two is proved of that. “It’s not the way we plan things,” rookie center Sean Couturier said Saturday after scoring his first career playoffs hat-trick. “We seem to find a way to get back every night. It’s going to catch up with us some day. We’ve got to fix that pretty quick.”
According to some betting trends, the Flyers have allowed the first goal in 12 of the last 14 games, and have trailed by multiple goals in nine of those games. “They went out; they took control of a game, and they fought back,” Flyers’ coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s not an easy thing to do. If it were the first time it happened this year, maybe you’d be like, `Oh, that’s pretty cool that we can do that.’ But we’ve done it a lot.”
The Penguins need to avoid committing dumb penalties, especially when they are in front on the scoreboard because Philadelphia leads the league in power play chances with 4.1 per game. The Flyers fast break style makes the game more penalties prone.
Pittsburgh was the favorite in Vegas to win the Stanley Cup entering the playoffs; their coach thinks that might have affected their mind set. “If you’re asking does it affect the mindset, I think it does,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma said. “You can say that losing 4-3 is a 4-3 loss no matter how it goes down, and an overtime game is painful for anybody who’s losing 4-3. But I think we understand we had leads, 3-0 leads and two-goals leads, and they were able to come back.
