Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH
The Pittsburgh Penguins never stopped believing they could beat the Philadelphia Flyers.
Not when the Flyers won the first three games of their Eastern Conference quarterfinals series. Not when the Flyers raced to a quick lead in Game 4. Not even in the waning moments of Game 6, when an unlikely comeback died in a surprisingly one-sided 5-1 loss.
The Penguins began the playoffs eyeing a second Stanley Cup title in four years. The journey ended before it barely began.
Again.
A year ago, the Penguins had excuses when they fell to Tampa Bay in seven games in the opening round. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were out. Lightning goaltender Dwayne Roloson played the series of his life. Pittsburgh was worn down after grinding for months without their two stars in the lineup.
Not this time. Pittsburgh started the playoffs at full strength only to get outplayed and — even worse — outclassed by the Flyers.
Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury was erratic, the special teams were abysmal and the resolve Pittsburgh showed while winning 51 games during the season went missing for long stretches.
“We put ourselves in a pretty big hole,” Crosby said. “We pretty much had to play perfect hockey to get back in the series and did a pretty good job until [Sunday]. ... Just, when you put yourself three-zero, it’s pretty tough to get back in.”
Pittsburgh never could. There’s a reason only three teams in postseason history have climbed out of 3-0 deficits to win a series. It’s tough to win four straight games during the regular season, much less against your arch rival in the playoffs.
As the Flyers celebrated on Sunday afternoon, the Penguins filed slowly to the dressing room to ponder another spring that ended far too early.
The NHL’s highest scoring team pumped in plenty of goals against Philadelphia. Pittsburgh found the back of the net 26 times in six games. In most series, that’s plenty.
Not this one, where traditional playoff hockey sometimes took a backseat to the kind of offensive explosion normally reserved for the All-Star game.
Philadelphia scored 12 power-play goals in the series, a franchise playoff record. No matter how many defensemen the Penguins dressed or how many adjustments coach Dan Bylsma made, the Flyers had an answer.
“It’s not a good feeling and the guys are definitely going to remember this feeling,” Pittsburgh center Jordan Staal said. “Hopefully we can take something positive out of it and really do what we can next year.”