Kovacevic: Lots of lessons to be learned ... or not

PHILADELPHIA -- So much about the Penguins' performance in Game 6 elevated so many existing concerns, not least of which was, you know, that Game 6 never should have been a thing.

Among the others within the 8-5 elimination of the Flyers on this Sunday at Wells Fargo Center: Another sluggish-skating start in which the opponent registered seven of the first nine shots and four of the first six goals. Not nearly enough pucks put on a goaltender who was a goal-waiting-to-be-given. And on this specific occasion, their own goaltender nearly getting pulled.

All of which would be fine except that the pattern is now as close to cemented as possible, in that it began in October and it's continuing a round into the Stanley Cup playoffs. With no seminal, transformational moment in sight.

I asked Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang, two obviously central figures in the team's leadership, what lessons could be learned -- both good and bad -- from how this series concluded:

Reasonable answers from reasonable men.

But maybe the time is past for reason, particularly when it comes to these poor starts. Even with the absences of Evgeni Malkin and soon Carl Hagelin, and even with Matt Murray struggling, there's no rationalization for falling behind a visibly inferior team and risking a perilous Game 7 in Pittsburgh.

Crosby himself acknowledged that when asked if it was good to have the series over at six games, replying, "I mean, to be honest, I think it’s much more just trying to win the series. The more they hang around and get the one game, anything can happen."

Precisely. They played with fire. And they got away with it because of their opponent. The same won't be an option in any subsequent round, so adjusting this pattern suddenly became mandatory.

• For the record, my prediction for the series had the Penguins winning in 5 1/2. Not even I knew exactly what the heck that meant, but in the end, they should have won in five and ended up winning in six, so let's split the difference and say it was dead-on, deal?

• My other way-to-go-out-on-a-limb-dude prediction for the series was that the Flyers' goaltending would be wretched. Turns out I missed badly on that one since it was so very much less than that: The Penguins scored 27 goals on 156 shots against Brian Elliott, Michal Neuvirth and Petr Mrazek. Sparing everyone the math, that's an .827 save percentage, as well as an average of a goal being scored on a goaltender once every 13 minutes, 12 seconds.

• Sullivan had no choice but to admit he nearly pulled Murray, given that the coaches had green-lighted Casey DeSmith to don his mask and begin stretching after this eminently stoppable Scott Laughton shot beat Murray short-side:

Even so, his remarks were instructive.

"We were contemplating on the bench whether to make a goalie change, and my gut was telling me to stay with Matt, that he’s such a battler," Sullivan said. "Some of the goals ... it was a crazy game in that regard. We did talk about it, to try and change the momentum at that particular time, and I was considering it. But my gut told me to stay with Matt, and I’m glad I did because he made some good saves in the third."

Murray didn't play well yesterday. Much is bound to be made of that. More should be made, I think, of Sullivan having had to face, for the first time, not having that wealth of choices from the previous playoffs.

• Not going to play doctor, but I sensed less immediate concern about Malkin's injury than about Hagelin's. He really had his bell rung on the hit by Claude Giroux. We'll know more soon enough, but not sooner than Tuesday. Sullivan's given the team today off.

• Sorry, nothing wrong with Giroux's check on Hagelin. Clean shoulder delivered in open ice, just after Hagelin releases the puck. Giroux's skates come up slightly, but that's on the follow-through and not the actual contact:

It's disturbing to see anyone injured, but that doesn't make all such acts illegal.

• What was more disturbing -- and I sure hope the NBC cameras caught this, if only to rightly embarrass the NHL -- was having none of the four officials on the ice blow the whistle upon seeing Hagelin in visible distress, barely able to stand, then stumbling toward the bench.

Concussions are real injuries. They're injuries to the brain. It's about time this league began at least pretending to recognize that.

• Or lose a monstrous class-action lawsuit. That would do it.

• Phil Kessel was ready to scrap with Giroux after that check. That wouldn't have hurt nearly as much as reminding him that a guy who had 102 points and a plus-28 rating in the regular season had just been shrunken to a one-goal, minus-10 non-factor in the playoffs.

Asked afterward about his general showing, Giroux replied, "Not good enough."

• Sean Couturier's statue is being planned next to Rocky's, based on some of the hyperbolic reaction here to his winning goal in Game 5, his hat trick in Game 6, and his having achieved both on what he'd confess afterward was a partially torn MCL.

Look, it's impressive and commendable, but it's not mind-blowing. He won't require surgery, as he also acknowledged, but he would have missed about a month had it happened in the regular season. He's a really, really good two-way player, one who really, really came into his own offensively over the season, and he played through pain in the playoffs. That's plenty enough without striking up the symphony.

• Couturier had five goals. No other Philadelphia forward had more than one.

• The Panthers, who only ran out of time to make the playoffs, would have blown these Flyers away in five. They'd have given the Penguins a much tougher time, too.

• Best sport, worst league, Part 1,975 ...

Conor Sheary and the Flyers' Travis Konecny were tangled up on the ice for a few seconds. Eric Furlatt, one of the NHL's worst in stripes, was right there, but he made no call. Then, only after Sheary starts skating away and gets crosschecked from behind by Konecny, Furlatt sends off both with coincidental minors:

See, here's the deal: Sheary's genuinely guilty of a roughing minor. But to repeat, Furlatt made no call. So when Sheary gets up to leave, that sequence is over. O-V-E-R. And there isn't some unlimited statute of limitations with penalties. They're either called in a reasonable period -- meaning when they're seen -- or they aren't. An official doesn't carry the latitude to arbitrarily decide, hey, yeah, I'm just going to ship both of them to the box since I blew the first one.

That's why Sheary shouted, "What am I going for?" And as he later confirmed for me, he did so for the exact reason I just described.

Worse, Furlatt doesn't even get the specific calls right, assigning the cross-check to Sheary and the rough to Konecny.

Good Lord.

• Riley Sheahan was acquired for Scott Wilson. Not one of us took that trade seriously. We all look stupid right now, as I'll publicly confess:

• The best coach in this series wasn't Sullivan or Dave Hakstol. It was Jacques Martin. No one had a greater challenge than Martin in salvaging a deeply troubling penalty-kill, and all they did in the series was finish 19 of 21, including a pivotal four-on-three Philadelphia power play in the second that would be followed by the Penguins' piling up five straight goals.

"The PK was huge for us," Jake Guentzel would say, unprovoked. "We all fed off what those guys did."

• That said, I couldn't help but notice that, when Hakstol called timeout just before that four-on-three, it was Sullivan leaping -- and that's not an exaggeration -- down from behind the bench to grab the dry-erase board, as captured by our Matt Sunday in the main photo above this column.

Sunday's got more good stuff in his new Three Views from Ice Level feature.

• Guentzel scored four goals in a row. There's nothing I can add that could come close to rivaling this:

• Ray Shero's drafting left much to be desired for far too long. But if seeking a perspective on how hard that process can be, get a load of Guentzel when Shero and the Penguins made him their third-round pick in 2013. He looks like he's 11, maybe 12:

That child scored four goals in a row yesterday.

• I'd offer Shero congratulations except that I don't think he'd receive my correspondence where he's currently incarcerated for having robbed the Oilers of Taylor Hall. Maybe we'll chat during visitation hours.

• The next opponent will be the Capitals. Sergei Bobrovsky has about as much chance of winning back-to-back elimination games as John Tortorella has of servicing tables at a media luncheon.

• When the Blue Jackets lose, they'll have no choice but to be rid of Bobrovsky and maybe Tortorella, too. There's been plenty enough talent there the past three years for that franchise to not still be seeking its first playoff advancement. Something's not allowing that to happen, and it isn't the roster-building. Not from this angle.

• Say this for the Flyers: Unlike the Capitals and Blue Jackets, they're the Penguins' real rival. Their archrival.

Which is why our Taylor Haase collected for you all 33 seconds of the handshine line:

That's on endless loop, by the way. Enjoy with the ones you love.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY