Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs was all that we could have hoped for. You could tell right out of the gates that there is no love lost between these two teams. The Flyers and Penguins haven't faced off against each other since Thanos was still collecting gems. Still, both teams were chipping away at each other, getting physical, the crowd was hyped out (can't wait until the series moves to Philly), and emotions were high.
Philly's young guns came to shine. Porter Martone scored a beauty of a shot that pinged off the crossbar. Jamie Drysdale scored the opening shot with a great screen by Martone in front of Stuart Skinner. The momentum that got them into the postseason is continuing.
However, two Flyers who went scoreless were big keys in the victory. Let's take a look at them.
Sean Couturier
In a lot of the articles that I write, you always hear me talk about fundamentals. I write a lot about the importance of faceoffs. Couturier won a blistering 62.5% of his faceoffs. While none of the faceoff wins led directly to a goal, they helped prevent goals. He won some key faceoffs against Sidney Crosby at important moments during the game, especially when Philadelphia was on the defensive and frustrated Pittsburgh's attempts at a comeback.
And speaking of being frustrating, the line of Couturier, Luke Glendening, and Garnet Hathaway was all over Crosby's line. Couturier delivered a team-high seven hits (Hathaway wasn't far behind with six) and was getting under Crosby's skin all night, though he wasn't the only one. You saw this near the end of the game, where both Sanheim and Crosby were sent to the sin bin for cross-checking and roughing.
Keep an eye on this matchup as both captains will continue to get physical with each other.
Nick Seeler
Seeler is not one of Philly's scoring defenders like Drysdale, Travis Sanheim, and Cam York. He's not huge and physical like Rasmus Ristolainen. Yet, he tied Sanheim with three hits. He led the team with two takeaways and had one blocked shot. He did all of this playing just 14 minutes of the game. Only Emil Andrae played less, as Rick Tocchet had his top four defenders out for most of the game.
Still, every time he was out there, you heard the announcers talk about the skillset he brings to the game for the Flyers: "he's a defender's defender", "he's a workhorse", "he's not flashy, but gets the job done", etc.
Seeler finished a +1 out there on the ice. Yes, he isn't flashy, but you never see him mess up. The Flyers are lucky to have a defensive-minded guy like Seeler shutting down the Penguins in the transition game. Pittsburgh never seemed to be able to get that part of their game going. That will be big moving forward.
Now we are on to game two. Let's hope the Flyers can return home being up 2-0.
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