Penalty kill stuns Penguins as Flyers take control of series

Special teams were going to play a large role between the Flyers and Penguins. Pittsburgh posted top-10 units on both sides during the regular season. Meanwhile, the Flyers were bottom of the league in both, marred by a league-worst power play. And the latter hasn’t looked any better in the postseason.

The advantage was clearly on the Penguins side in both areas. But it has been anything but an advantage for them through two games. A slide that started toward the end of the regular season has gotten worse in more important games. They’ve had seven power play opportunities and have looked rather ineffective on all of them. The Flyers have done a marvelous job at limiting their opportunities and keeping them out of the dangerous areas.

Overall, they’ve managed three shots on their seven opportunities dating back to the first game. In five power play opportunities during the second game, the Penguins managed a measly two shots, one each on their final two chances. The Flyers penalty kill had more shots than their opponent, pulled the dagger on their second chance, and nearly did it again later.

Flyers using a strong penalty kill to their advantage

If you asked any Flyers fan going into this series, it’s highly unlikely they would say there was confidence in the special teams unit. They allowed the eighth most power play goals this season at 55, only 10 back of Vancouver. Meanwhile the Penguins had 56 goals on their man advantage.

So of course, the Flyers have the only special teams goal and it came short handed. And why not have one of your fastest and most skilled skaters on the ice so he can make plays like this.

It’s hard to pick out the best part of what Tippett does in this sequence. He challenges Skinner on the wrap around the boards, realizes he can beat Tommy Novak to the puck, dekes Letang out of skates, and pulls Skinner over with the fake shot to leave a wide open net for Garnet Hathaway.

The Flyers nearly deposited another shorthanded goal via Luke Glendening. Skinner had to make an incredible save as Glendening and Couturier came down the ice on the 2-on-0.

The most important part of all of this is that they’ve kept players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin from being effective. You never want to give those two players any more extra space. The two have combined for seven shots and only one of them has come on the power play. Kris Letang and Ben Kindel, a rookie, have the only other two shots on the man advantage in the series.

Now down 2-0 in the series, the Penguins are going to be a desperate team coming to Philadelphia. The Flyers have done their part defensively to stifle their opponent. And they’ve done it with an area of their game that wasn’t the strongest during the regular season.

Staying out of penalty trouble is still a huge key because Pittsburgh will be hard pressed to break out of their slump. But if this is how the until is going to perform, the Penguins are going to continue to be in plenty of trouble.

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