Hakstol: Flyers just 'introduced ourselves into this series'

This was not the Flyers of 1974 or 1989 or, for that matter, 2012.

But it sure as H-E-double-hockey-sticks was not the same Flyers team from Game 1 that showed up Friday night at PPG Paints Arena for Game 2 of their first-round series against their cross-state archrivals.

After looking lifeless in this same building just two nights earlier, the bad guys reverted only a little bit to their Broad Street Bullies roots in their 5-1 win that evened the best-of-seven at a game apiece.

Sure, there were some heated scrums and a few questionable hits to be sure, but, as Penguins-Flyers go, this wasn't quite Robbie Brown getting chased around the rink or three-Penguins-getting-suspended-in-a-single-game stuff.

The anger and the frustration, however, were much the same for the Penguins. No team, neither the Capitals nor the Blue Jackets, can infuriate the Penguins to distraction quite like the team from the other end of the Commonwealth.

By earning a much-needed split in Pittsburgh, the Flyers believe they may have planted at least a small seed of doubt in the two-time defending champions. With the series tied and headed to South Philly for Games 3 and 4 on Sunday and Wednesday, the Penguins' hopes for a short series -- forget the sweep -- seem a little less likely.

"We said it coming in, nobody is giving us a serious chance in this series. I don’t know if anybody still will," Dave Hakstol said. 

But if the Flyers can somehow repeat their performance from Game 2, who knows what can happen?

Friday night's frustrations for the Penguins stemmed not so much from the Flyers' increased physical play -- the Penguins can give as well as they get -- but mostly from a lack of, you know, scoring. The team with the league's most lethal offensive arsenal was held to one goal after putting up a seven-spot in the opener.

Want to see what frustration looks like?

This was Sidney Crosby, the player that the City of Brotherly Love loves to hate, after missing on a wide-open net in the dying seconds of a 2-0 game in the second period:

Believe me, it did not go unnoticed in the Philadelphia dressing room:

"If they’re frustrated, they're not on their game, I guess," said defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who opened the scoring in the final 37 seconds of the first period. "For us, we’re just going to worry about ourselves out there and play our game. If that frustrates them, then that’s what happens."

For the second game in a row, the league's top-ranked power play looked anything but, this time going 0-for-4 without mustering even a shot, against what had been the NHL's 29th-ranked power play in the regular season.

Frustration?

The Penguins threw 35 shots at Brian Elliott, who stopped all but one. Yes, that Brian Elliott.  The same 33-year-old journeyman who gave up three goals on 10 shots in the opener and was wearing a heating pad around his surgically-repaired stomach muscles before Game 2.

This was just Elliott's fourth start since core muscle surgery sidelined him for nearly two months. And this was the Elliott the Flyers were hoping to see when they signed him to a two-year, $5.5 million contract in free agency. Before Friday's game, there was speculation that Hakstol might go with Petr Mrazek in net. Instead, Elliott rewarded his coach with some timely saves, including a first-period stop of Crosby on a 150-foot, breakaway.

"You want to take advantage of the opportunity," Elliott said. "It’s special to get a start. It’s special to get starts in playoffs and carry a team and try and be the block in the wall behind them. The way the guys played tonight in front of me, we blocked  ... I don’t know how many more shots than we did the other night ... but that was key for me, allowing me to stay confident and stay calm in the net."

Frustration? Here, Elliott gives his thoughts:

Certainly, the Flyers caught some massive breaks like Crosby shooting the puck through the crease (see above) and three shots hitting posts -- "those are the kind of breaks you need to win games," said Sean Couturier --  but mostly they were able to contain the Penguins' offense, forcing them to the outside on the perimeter. And when they did get chances, seven high-danger ones, according to naturalstattrick.com, Elliott was there to snuff them out.

"We were taking away the passing lanes, the shooting lanes, putting pressure on them when we could," said second-year defenseman Ivan Provorov. 

"Just take their time and space away, have a good gap, that's the biggest thing," said Gostisbehere. "Those guys are lethal when they have time and space to make plays. For us, we did a good job shutting that down tonight."

Hakstol, however, scoffed at the notion that his team's win was due to some puck luck.

"We got a bounce but none of us sat up here two nights ago and complained about any bounces that went against us. We didn’t play well two nights ago," he said. "Tonight we played our asses off." 

They also worked their, um, rears off. They blocked 11 shots (to Pittsburgh's four), they threw 31 hits and were in the Penguins' faces all night, like Wayne Simmonds throwing this jab into Evgeni Malkin early in the second period:

Sure, they took too many (read: dumb) penalties, like the one to Simmonds -- they're still the Flyers, after all -- but they killed them all off. In fact, they were able to gain momentum off it. Despite taking seven penalties over the final 40 minutes, they outscored the Penguins 4-1 over that span, all while taking Pittsburgh completely off its own game.

Frustration?

Bryan Rust, of all people, took a slashing penalty at 3:50 of the third period that Nolan Patrick converted for a power play goal at 5:10. Patric Hornqvist had a conniption and was shown the gate at 15:56 of the third.

These only slightly-kinder, slightly-gentler Flyers know they can't beat the Penguins by trading scoring opportunity for scoring opportunity, they have to muddy the waters to even give themselves a chance in the series. If the Penguins offered a blueprint of how they would like to win in Game 1, the Flyers -- swept in the regular-season series -- showed in Game 2 how they'll have to win.

What does it say about the Flyers that they were able to bounce back Friday after such a brutal start to the series?

"I don’t think it says anything inside our dressing room, I think we expected it," Hakstol said. "It was pretty tough for us to walk out of the rink a couple nights ago. That wasn’t us. In terms of what it says outside our dressing room, I don’t know that our guys really care."

No, these Flyers aren't looking to turn back the clock to the 1970s. But they'd like to do something that hasn't been done since 1953. That year, the Bruins became the only team to win a series after losing the first game by seven goals.

Can the Flyers become the second?

"I know this," Hakstol said. "We just got it down to a five-game series and we introduced ourselves into this series tonight."

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY