PHILADELPHIA – Penalty killing has been one of the Flyers’ strong suits this season but it wasn’t on Monday night.
They gave up a season-high three power-play goals to Pittsburgh and that was plenty of fuel for a 5-1 victory over the Flyers at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
To make matters worse, Flyers’ top scorer Tyson Foerster left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return to action.
The first of those three power-play goals came off the stick of Sidney Crosby, who’s been a pest to the Flyers for decades.
Crosby has scored more points against the Flyers than any other player in the history of the National Hockey League and even at age 38 he continues to build on his supremacy.
Anyone who watched Monday night’s game could see Crosby has hardly lost a step.
The loss to the cross-state rivals ended the Flyers’ three-game winning streak.
Crosby’s dominance has been going on for the better part of 20 years, Crosby found the net for the 58th and 59th time vs. the Flyers for his illustrious career. In all, 137 points.
The Flyers’ penalty kill has been ranked in the top five for much of the season but the Penguins have a lot of firepower with Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
“It (the penalty kill) has been good all year but it struggled tonight,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “They get a lot of shots in the middle and that’s what we’re trying to get our guys to do. That’s when you usually score power-play goals. It’s one of those things, we have to clean up the PK. We have to clean up the structure part of it.”
The players who spend a lot of time on the penalty kill agreed with that assessment.
“All year the PK has been great for us,” Sean Couturier said. “Tonight we didn’t have it. They picked us apart. Sometimes we don’t have it. Give them credit, they made plays. You look at the goals, they’re all different kinds of goals.”
Noah Cates was puzzled by the number of penalties the Flyers took.
“Kind of weird penalties in the second (period) there,” he said. “You just have to learn from this. From the start of the year the PK has been pretty good. So you got to get back to it and the details that got us to be one of the best PKs in the league.”
Crosby’s first goal unfolded shortly after a Pittsburgh penalty ended in the first period. The Penguins’ Bryan Rust delivered a hard shot on goaltender Dan Vladar and the rebound came to Crosby, who made no mistake at 9:18.
Meanwhile, the Flyers had their chances against goalie Tristan Jarry but couldn’t convert.
In the second period, the Flyers got a five-on-three power-play goal from Foerster early in the second period but Crosby responded with a power-play goal of his own at 8:08.
Then the Penguins’ power play, ranked second in the NHL, struck again with Bryan Rust doing the honors via a left-circle shot past Vladar at 15:52.
Vladar entered the game having allowed more than two goals only five times in his first 15 games.
In the third period, Thomas Novak scored on the power play at 13:52 to make it 4-1. Kevin Hayes scored on a break-in at 15:33 to account for the final score.
>Tocchet milestone
Tocchet recorded his 300th NHL win on Saturday night at New Jersey. Going into Monday night’s game vs. Pittsburgh, Tocchet’s team sported a winning percentage of .646, which, if it holds up for the remainder of the season, would be the second-highest of his career.
>Short shots
The Flyers continue their six-game homestand with a game against Buffalo on Wednesday night. . . .Flyers defenseman Adam Ginning cleared waivers and was assigned to Lehigh Valley. . .Penguins had what looked to be a goal at 1:47 of the third period disallowed because of goaltender interference. Malkin appeared to be the guilty party. . .Flyers are 4-7-2 when trailing after two periods. . .Matvei Michkov took over the team lead in penalty minutes with 24. . .The five goals allowed by Vladar matched his season high. He also allowed five in a loss at Dallas.
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