Last night in Philadelphia with their season on the line the Flyers showed their resolve once again. Claude Giroux tipped in a Matt Carle shot at 5:59 of overtime to give Philadelphia a 4-3 over Chicago. Chicago still leads the series two games to one.
Philadelphia got on the board in the 1st period when Danny Briere scored his 11th goal of the post-season on the power play to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead. Chicago evened the scored nearly three minutes into the 2nd period when Duncan Keith's shot went off the stick of Flyers forward Jeff Carter and past goalie Michael Leighton into the back of the net.
Philadelphia retook the lead seven minutes later when Scott Hartnell scored a power play goal for the Flyers. The goal was not awarded right away as it rolled along the edge of the goal line before Chicago's Niklas Hjalmarsson cleared the puck away from the net. Once play was stopped it was reviewed and considered a good goal for Philadelphia.
Chicago would tie the game with a little over two minutes to play in the 2nd period. John Madden won a draw in the offensive zone leading to a Brent Sopel slap shot that beat Leighton stick side. Chicago finally took their 1st lead of the game in the 3rd period when Patrick Kane scored on a breakaway to give Chicago a 3-2 lead.
The lead only lasted for twenty seconds however as Ville Leino scored on a rebound off of Antti Niemi to tie the game at 3-3. In overtime Flyers forward Simon thought he scored a game winner early in the overtime only to have it overruled when replay showed that the puck never crossed the goal line. It didn't matter as Giroux scored the overtime winner minutes later to end the game.
Notes from last night:
One thing keeping the Flyers alive is their special teams. With Briere & Hartnell scoring on the power play last night that brings the total of power play goals in this series to four for Philadelphia. Chicago has yet to score on a power play in this series. The longer this goes on the more it favors Philly.
Despite the loss Jonathan Toews & Patrick Kane were both able to get on the score sheet for the first time this series. Kane had a goal & an assist while Toews had the assist on Kane's goal. The Blackhawks are hoping that is just the start for those two in the series.
I though both goalies were about equal last night. I can't fault Leighton for any of the goals he gave up last night. The first one deflected in off a teammate's stick. He was screened by his own defenseman on the second one and the third goal was on a breakaway by Patrick Kane.
As for Niemi, one thing the Flyers did well last night was go hard to the net and get traffic in front of him. They were able to get to rebounds and deflect pucks. Chicago's defense has to do a better job against the Flyers forwards.
On the other hand, Chicago is having trouble getting to the front of the net against Michael Leighton especially when Chris Pronger is on the ice for Philly. He is winning the battle in front with Dustin Byfuglien right now and getting under Byfuglien's skin. In fact Byfuglien's slash on Pronger is what lead to Hartnell power play goal last night.
Byfuglien has to keep a level head up front when battling with Pronger. Pronger isn't going to get a penalty called on him unless it is blatant. There were at least two plays I thought you could have called a penalty on Pronger last night in the 3rd period. If this was a game in February it may have been called. However this is the Stanley Cup Finals and whether you like him or not superstars like Pronger will get the benefit of the doubt from time to time.
So what does this loss mean for Chicago? Right now I don't think it means anything. Chicago knew that regardless of what happened in game three they were going to have the lead in the series. Instead of three games to none it is two games to one. I'm sure no one in that locker room has a problem being up two games to one. The goal when you go on the road in the playoffs is to get a split. Chicago will have a chance to do that Friday night.
In the last four Stanley Cup Finals each series has started with the higher seed winning the first two games of the series and the lower seed winning game three. This Cup finals is following that script so far. Chicago still has control of this series. If they win tomorrow night then they have a chance to win the cup on Sunday night in front of their home fans. That should be enough motivation for game four.
That will do it for today. If anything interesting catches my eye I'll try to have something posted before game four. I'll for sure have a recap for you on Saturday. Game four is Friday night at 7 PM on Versus. Thanks for reading & enjoy the hockey.
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