'We got outplayed': Penguins shut out as Vladar, Flyers take 2-0 series lead

PITTSBURGH — The Philadelphia Flyers were on their heels. 

They’d been pushed back, hemmed in, cornered. After walking all over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 1 of this series, the Flyers had taken the ice in the middle frame of Game 2 and seen Sidney Crosby’s club slowly start to come to life, seen the league’s third-best regular-season offence begin to find some juice.

“They were pressing us,” head coach Rick Tocchet said late Monday night. “For about three or four minutes, [before] we got to the timeout. They were coming in waves at us.”

Then netminder Dan Vladar strode over to Philly’s bench, the picture of calm. He had a message.

“He said, ‘We’re okay,’” the coach remembered. “’Guys, don’t worry about it. Relax.’ He says that. He’s the goalie — he’s getting peppered. It means a lot. Now, guys are like, ‘I’ve got to pick my game up. I’ve got to block a shot for this guy.’”

The TV timeout concluded, the Flyers went back over the boards, and the visitors tilted the ice back in their favour. A few minutes later, teenage phenom Porter Martone was shovelling a deflected puck into the back of the Penguins net to draw first blood. Then Garnet Hathaway was finishing off a savvy short-handed sequence from Owen Tippett to put the Broad Street squad up 2-0.

Momentum killed, pressure deflated.

And on the other end of the sheet, Vladar backed up his words of wisdom, and proved just how relaxed he was. The 28-year-old turned aside everything the Penguins threw at him, posting his first career post-season shutout and sending the Flyers back to Philadelphia with a 2-0 lead in this first-round series. 

“He’s been like that all year for us. Guys enjoy playing for him,” Tocchet said of his netminder as the fans filtered out of PPG Paints Arena, fresh off his club's 3-0 win Monday night. “He comes by the bench, he’s talking to the players, talking to the bench. A lot of guys aren’t used to goalies talking that much, but that’s the way Vladdy is — I love his personality.”

It was another banner night for the Flyers. For the second straight game, the underdog squad that came into these playoffs rolling like a freight train ran right over the veteran Penguins. Though Pittsburgh managed a better offensive effort this time around, and looked steadier in the face of the Flyers’ physicality, the home side still looked a ways off the fluid, free-flowing form they found for much of the regular season.

“I don’t think that we’ve played, collectively, the game that we have throughout the year,” veteran Erik Karlsson said from the Penguins locker room post-game. “It doesn’t feel like we’re as comfortable as we want to be, and it’s frustrating. They’re doing a good job. There’s nothing else to it — they outplayed us. For six periods now.

“It’s unfortunate. It sucks right now. But at the end of the day, we can’t do much about it. We got outplayed for two games at home. It hurts. But we’ve got no one else to blame but ourselves. All we can do is take care of that and move forward.”

What's worrying for the Penguins faithful is that on the other side of the sheet, the Flyers — who head home to their own rink two wins away from ending this series — didn’t much like their performance, either.

“I didn’t think we had our game tonight. They were coming,” said Tocchet. “But I liked our resolve. You know, we gave them some outside stuff, and when we didn’t, Vladdy was there. We know we can’t play like that again. … Give them credit, they played well. It was a goofy game for us. 

“Sometimes in playoffs you’re going to have to win those ugly games. It was an ugly game, for us.”

No doubt uglier for a Pittsburgh squad that now must win one of two in as hostile an environment as they could find if they hope to stay alive and keep this return to the post-season rolling.

“I mean, playoffs aren’t easy. That’s the way it is sometimes. It doesn’t always go your way,” said Crosby, who’s been held pointless through two games. “Especially here at home, we would’ve liked to get at least one, obviously both, and it didn’t happen. So, we’ve got to find a way to regroup and be better for Game 3, and get the next one.”

The captain was asked if the Flyers are doing anything specific to make it difficult for he and his linemates to produce.

“No. It’s playoff hockey,” he said. “It’s tight-checking. You’ve got to find a way to generate.”

As this series shifts to Philadelphia, his club is running out of chances to do so. After finishing the regular season as one of the most prolific offensive outfits in the league, the Penguins’ attack has sputtered through two games, stringing together only a handful of sequences that saw them truly look like the offensive juggernaut they’d been for much of this campaign.

But it won’t get any easier come Wednesday, in Game 3.

“I don’t think this is something that’s common to just us, in this series. This is playoff hockey,” said Penguins head coach Dan Muse post-game. “You look around the league — everything’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s the NHL playoffs. Everybody’s going to be in lanes. Everybody should be in lanes. You’re going to have to do those little things that can give you an extra inch — finding the shot lane a little bit quicker, working to get to the netfront a little bit faster. All those things are in play. 

“Not just for us — that’s across the league. We have to get to that point. We haven’t yet.”

The Penguins’ frustration came to a boiling point in the dying minutes of Monday’s tilt, the game finishing an ugly scene after Luke Glendening potted a late empty-netter for Philadelphia. Helmets and gloves littered the ice, officials sprinted to separate combatants, the home side clearly perturbed at another night that had gone off the rails.

And rightfully so, said their coach.

“There should be frustration. We should be frustrated. We just lost two games at home,” Muse said. “I think with frustration, though, comes ‘How are we going to respond?’ I would hope every single guy in that room, on our staff, nobody’s happy right now. Nobody should be. Tomorrow we’re going to have to make a decision in terms of, you know, are we going to stay with it? Stay with what we want to do, get to our game — which we haven’t gotten to in two games — or are we going to let frustration continue to boil over into the next one? 

“That’s going to be a choice we, together, all of us, including myself, are going to have to make here over the next 24 hours.”