PITTSBURGH - Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Better learn to deal with them.

The Philadelphia Flyers still haven't, and it's the primary reason the Pittsburgh Penguins sent them to the Eastern Conference sidelines for the second spring in a row. As the Penguins' Game 6 comeback in Philadelphia showed, any team that expects to beat them without effectively controlling two of the NHL's best players probably has little chance of succeeding.

Pittsburgh has played four conference playoff series the last two seasons, and not one has gone to a seventh game. Only one the Penguins' first-round elimination of the Flyers that ended with a 5-3 victory in Game 6 on Saturday even reached a sixth game.

Thank goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and his 2.15 goals-against average during the last two postseasons, for sure, but most of all thank Malkin and Crosby.

No one on their roster is saying the Penguins will cruise through the rest of the conference playoffs, as they did while losing only two games in three rounds before being beaten by Detroit in the Stanley Cup finals last season. Depending on how the Capitals-Rangers and Devils-Hurricanes series wind up, the Penguins could open their conference semifinal series later this week at Boston or New Jersey.

A year ago, the Penguins owned the home-ice advantage in each of their three conference playoff series and went on to win the first two games each time. They did the same thing in beating the Flyers, getting off-track only when a 3-0 loss in Game 5 at home forced them to a Game 6 on Saturday, where they fell behind 3-0 but rallied with five consecutive goals.

A 3-0 lead at home, and six consecutive goals scored in the series. The Flyers had to be feeling pretty good about returning to Pittsburgh for Game 7 on Monday night, only to forget that Crosby and Malkin can change a game or a series in a hurry.

"Crosby and Malkin ... it almost looked like they took the game over, to be honest with you," Flyers coach John Stevens said.

Crosby had two goals in Game 6 and Malkin set up goals by Ruslan Fedotenko and Sergei Gonchar with a pair of exceptional rushes the kind of ride-my-back brilliance that picks up the game of their teammates.

"The playoffs is about giving players a chance to get opportunities to put the cape on," coach Dan Bylsma said. "Different guys had the chance to be the hero."

Except in Pittsburgh, it's usually Malkin and Crosby in the middle of everything. Malkin was the NHL's leading scorer with 113 points during the season and remains that way in the playoffs with four goals and five assists. Crosby was second going into Sunday's games with four goals and four assists.

By contrast, the Flyers' Jeff Carter, second in the league to Washington's Alex Ovechkin with 46 goals during the season, was held to one goal in six games by Pittsburgh.