Friday, April 20, 2012
Associated Press
pittsburgh
Sidney Crosby keeps waiting for the madness to stop. Keeps expecting the law of averages to kick in. Keeps wondering when the series between the Flyers and the Penguins will start to resemble something close to playoff hockey.
And the games pass, and the goals and the fights and the penalties and the suspensions pile up, and the series continues to look like something played with joysticks, not hockey sticks.
“I think it’s all kind of crossed our mind and probably a lot of other people’s too,” Crosby said. “You see that happen maybe once and you kind of think ‘Oh, that’s a weird game’ and then in four games it’s surprising but we’ve got to find ways to adjust and ways to win.”
The Penguins finally found a way in Game 4, staving off elimination with a resounding 10-3 victory that silenced — at least for a night — critics who wondered if Pittsburgh was going to even bother showing up.
Yet for all the frustration released in 60 minutes of largely brilliant hockey, the Penguins are well aware it will mean little if they can’t build on it in Game 5 tonight.
“The way we looked at it, it didn’t matter if it was 2-1 or 10-3,” defenseman Brooks Orpik said. “It’s still only one win. You don’t get any extra points for beating them by seven goals.
“We’ve dug ourselves a big hole and we just have to chip away at it, little by little here.”
They believe they restored some sense of order during the final two periods Wednesday, holding the Flyers scoreless while padding their lead with six goals.
“We just kept it simple,” Crosby said.
It’s all that was required after watching Philadelphia implode. Starting goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov was pulled after surrendering five goals on just 18 shots. Backup Sergei Bobrovsky fared no better, letting in five of his own as the Flyers absorbed their worst playoff loss in more than a decade.
Bryzgalov will get the start again tonight.