Fleury Steals Game Four; Flyers Down, 3-1
Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was sensational on Tuesday night, stopping just about everything that the Flyers could throw at him and leading the Penguins to a 3-1 victory in game four. Although the Flyers outplayed the Penguins, outshooting them 46-26 and dominating the play for most of the game, they couldn’t solve Fleury. Can’t blame the refs in this one as the Flyers were 0 for 8 on the power play. Crosby’s goal that gave the Pens a 1-0 lead was a fluke, maybe it could have been waived off, but when you put 46 shots on net and have eight power plays, you have to be able to score. The frustrating thing is that the Flyers clearly outplayed the Pens in two of the games they lost and could (should?) be up three games to one. But that’s what a great goalie does for a team in the playoffs and although Biron has played well, maybe he hasn’t played to the level of Fleury and right now, that’s the difference.
Fleury stops chance by Flyers' Scott Hartnell
April 23, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I agree. The refs did help a little in game 2 with a cheesy call on Carter and a five-on-three in overtime of a playoff game (something that would NEVER happen to the Penguins), but the bottom line is that you have to score more than one or two goals a game in the playoffs to win a series. Either way, Fleury played out of his mind on Tuesday and we’re now down three games to one.
I heard a caller on WIP on Tuesday night make a very interesting point. He said that the three teams that might advance in the playoffs from the Atlantic Division are the ones that added impact players at the trade deadline and the one team that didn’t could be out. I’m not sure if that had a lot to do with the Flyers’ lack of success lately but he did point out the following as well: the Flyers’ “spring slide” did coincide with the passing of the trade deadline.
Hmmmm. As Mike well knows, I’m a huge proponent of trade day deadline trades (consider Matt Stairs).
April 24, 2009 at 2:35 pm
You could actually go back a little further than that to find the beginning of the slide – when the Flyers lost Ossi Vaananen and Glen Metropolit off waivers because of salary cap issues. They were popular in the dressing room and I’m sure the players were disgruntled to lose them because of poor cap management. Add to that the trade of Scottie Upshall, who was also well-liked, because of cap issues and I’ll bet all this was at the root of the slide.
April 24, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Yeah, I forgot about that. I liked the way Metropolit played.
The only thing that might explain the Upshall deal is that there was another deal in the works (perhaps a three way trade?) and it fell through leaving only the “Upshall for a bag of used pucks” deal.
They did play well last night, but that’s what they needed the FIRST night and they didn’t get it.
April 23, 2009 at 4:59 am
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