Taking a 'Flyer' Malkin's scoring spree gives Pens win
PITTSBURGH — For all the skill he possesses at age 21, all the goals he's scored, all he's done to put the Pittsburgh Penguins three victories away from the Stanley Cup finals, Evgeni Malkin has a weakness.
Give him a breakaway, and one of the NHL's best players becomes just another player.
At least that was the case until he scored a playoff goal he won't soon forget, on a shot no one expected, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the team the Penguins enjoy beating most.
Malkin's short-handed breakaway goal on a close-range slap shot early in the second period fooled Flyers goalie Martin Biron, plus Malkin's own teammates and coach, and pushed the Penguins to a 4-2 victory over Philadelphia on Friday night.
It probably wasn't Malkin's biggest goal of the game — his go-ahead goal on a hard wrist shot with only 6.5 seconds left in the first period probably was — but it is likely to be the one Malkin best remembers. The other Penguins, too, as they take a 1-0 lead into Game 2 Sunday night against the in-state team they've never defeated in the postseason.
"Hey, it worked," said teammate and fellow star Sidney Crosby, who also scored. "If I had the shot, I'd do the same thing, I think."
No one could remember seeing Malkin wind and fire from so close — he was between the hash marks — and have it work so well.
"I think he just thought, 'I've had enough, and I'm just going to shoot,' " teammate Marian Hossa said. "And he made a really good shot."
Malkin is 3-of-17 on career shootout attempts, one of the lowest conversion rates among active players, much less one who was No. 2 in the league in scoring. In the previous playoff round against the Rangers, Malkin slowed to such a crawl during a penalty shot that goalie Henrik Lundqvist probably could have snatched the puck off his stick.
Biron never saw this one, even if he said afterward, "You have to expect the unexpected with the top players and he's one of those."
"It was really a last-second decision," Malkin said, speaking through an interpreter, of his first career short-handed goal. "I just decided to shoot that puck as hard as I can. I didn't think about it, where to shoot, and to make any moves. Just as hard as I can."
With Malkin and Crosby combining for three goals, the Flyers didn't have enough offense to catch up.
Mike Richards scored two goals in the first period, but they clearly missed lockdown defenseman Kimmo Timonen.Timonen, expected to go against Malkin's line, must sit out the series with a blood clot in his left ankle. Still, it was difficult to pin this loss on his injury absence, especially when the Flyers' offense shut down after Richards scored twice from in close during the first period."You look at all the goals they scored and it's all off turnovers. We have to do a better job of protecting the puck," Philadelphia's Daniel Briere said. "We had our chances, if you look at the goals they scored, we had possession of the puck and kind of gave it away."Not that it necessarily means the sixth-seeded Flyers will give away the Pennsylvania Turnpike series to the second-seeded Penguins, who are 9-1 in the playoffs and 6-0 at home but are 0-3 in previous playoff series against Philadelphia.The Flyers lost Game 1 in each of their first two playoff rounds, and came back to beat Washington in seven games and Montreal in five."Once again, we're in the same situation for the third time in three series," Briere said. "We'll go back and study tapes and see what we can improve on. It's a long series."At least they hope it will be. Game 2 might determine that; if the Flyers lose again, they'll have to win Games 3 and 4 at home next week merely to even the series. The Penguins have won their last 14 at home, counting their final eight regular-season games there."You turn pucks over and give up rushes against Crosby and Malkin, that's a game you can't play," Flyers coach John Stevens said.Marc-Andre Fleury made the lead stand up while making 26 saves, another solid game by a goalie who is proving to be the difference-maker the Penguins thought he would be when they traded up in the first round to draft him No. 1 in 2003.Crosby, Malkin, Fleury — the Penguins' three key picks of the last five years were drafted to put them in position to win games such as these, and now they're doing it.Crosby, held without a goal in his previous five games, made it 2-2 after Hossa intercepted Biron's clearing pass as it came out of the corner and put a pass on Crosby's stick as he cut in from the right circle.Malkin's go-ahead goal, seconds before the first period ended, came with defenseman Derian Hatcher and the other tired Flyers unable to get a line change. Malkin broke free in the right circle for a hard wrist shot that beat Biron inside the post for the go-ahead goal.
