Penguins fall victim to lead poisoning taken at PPG Paints Arena (Penguins)

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

John Marino skates by as the Flyers’ Claude Giroux celebrates his winning goal in the third period Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.

The game was less than four minutes old when Philadelphia coach Alain Vigneault decided to burn his timeout.

Seemed like a good idea, under the circumstances.

After all, the Penguins already had a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard, thanks to goals by Kris Letang, Mark Friedman and Jared McCann.

They owned a 6-1 edge on the shot clock, too.

And the play had been at least as lopsided as those numbers suggest.

So Vigneault opted for a move many coaches try when they're looking to pull their team out of a free fall.

Did it work?

Well, the Flyers -- who had allowed three goals in the first four minutes of a game for just the third time in franchise history -- rebounded to beat the Penguins, 4-3, at PPG Paints Arena Thursday night, so there's certainly no reason for Vigneault to second-guess his decision.

But it might have been something other than his timeout that altered the course of the game.

The credit for the turnaround might actually belong to Flyers forward Nolan Patrick, who drove Penguins defenseman Mark Friedman face-first into the glass 53 seconds after play resumed.

Sure, at first blush, taking a boarding penalty when your team is down by a field goal might seem like a risky move -- after all, another Penguins goal at that point might have put the game out of reach -- but really, how much of a gamble is it to make the Penguins play with an extra man?

This, remember, is a team that is scoring on just 15.4 percent of its power plays this season. That is 5-for-48 with the man-advantage over the past 17 games.

And while a compelling case could be made that Patrick's hit was dirty -- and dangerous -- enough that he should have been assessed a major penalty, the reality is that if he had been, it likely would have meant only that the Flyers had three more minutes to try to manufacture a shorthanded goal.

As it was, neither team scored while Patrick was in the penalty box, but the Flyers came out of that shorthanded situation with something less tangible but nearly as valuable as a goal: Composure and confidence that had been missing in the early minutes of play.

So even though several Penguins players strenuously objected to suggestions that those two minutes were decisive -- "I think that's a reach, to blame that power play," Sidney Crosby said -- it's hard to dispute that they were a pivot point during which there was a striking shift in momentum.

The Flyers, outshot 6-2 when Patrick was penalized, had a 9-5 advantage for the rest of the period, then ran up a 24-18 edge during the second and third.

And, oh yeah, there were those four unanswered goals Philadelphia scored -- and that total would have been even more bloated, if not for some quality work by Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry.

"We just didn't play the game hard enough or smart enough for the majority of the game," Mike Sullivan said. "When you get up that early in games, you have to continue to play hard. You have to continue to do things that brought you success, and I don't think we did that as a group."

Letang gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead at 2:46 of the opening period, the first of three they would get in a span of 71 seconds.

Friedman, claimed on waivers from the Flyers last week, scored his first NHL goal at 3:20, when he beat Philadelphia goalie Brian Elliott from just below the hash marks, but he didn't get to enjoy it for long.

Patrick drove him into the boards a minute-and-a-half later, which caused Friedman to hobble to the dressing room for several minutes.

Then, at 2:35 of the second period, he launched himself into Patrick in the neutral zone, with Friedman's chin apparently the initial point of contact. Friedman was visibly dazed, and had to be helped to the dressing room.

This time, he did not return, and Sullivan said Friedman still was being evaluated after the game.

Friedman's departure left the Penguins with five defensemen, and Sullivan might well have wished at times that he would have deployed them all at once. That might have given his team a better chance of winning more of the battles in front of its net than it did while sending the defensemen out in pairs.

Claude Giroux scored the Flyers' second goal when he put in a rebound from the left side of the crease at 6:49 of the second period, then got the game-winner by steering in a Nicolas Aube-Kubel feed from the top of the crease after John Marino was unable to tie up his stick:

Philadelphia had the better of the confrontations in front of Elliott, too. There were just a lot more of them around Jarry.

"The majority of games are won and lost at the net-front," Sullivan said. "You have to do a good job at both ends of the rink in that regard. We have to try to defend hard in our end, and we have to try to get to the net-front in the opponent's end.

"You've got to win the puck battles at the net. I didn't think we were good enough in front of our net tonight, and I don't think we spend enough time in the offensive zone to get to their net."

The Penguins' third goal did come from close range -- Jared McCann steered in a Kasperi Kapanen pass from near the left post before spinning head-first into the boards after striking Elliott's right leg -- but the urgency that helped them to get a three-goal lead seemed to drain out of them shortly thereafter:

"We didn't keep pressing," Letang said. "We came out of the gate pretty aggressive, and got rewarded. But we let our foot off the gas for the rest of the game, thinking that we could get away with it. But in this league, there's too much talent and skill."

Losing this game underscored how the most consistent part of the Penguins' game this season -- aside from subpar special-teams play -- has been their inconsistency; they have alternated victories and losses for the past six games.

Why that happens remains something of a mystery; that it does is pretty hard to miss.

"If I had an answer for you, I could probably fix it," Sullivan said. "It's frustrating, from the coaches' standpoint, because I know we're capable of more consistent play. But we haven't found it yet.

"Some nights, when we play the game hard and we play committed and we play the right way and we work together, we're a competitive hockey team. And then, for whatever reason, other nights, we get away from it. Tonight was one of those nights."

A victory in regulation -- hardly an unreasonable objective for a team that grabs a three-goal lead on home ice -- would have put the Penguins two points ahead of Philadelphia, which has played two fewer games, in the East Division playoff race.

Instead, they trail the Flyers by two, and must beat them in regulation Saturday just to pull even again.

Still, although the nature of this loss means that it likely will sting for a while, the Penguins recognize that there's nothing to be gained by dwelling on it.

"There's nothing we can do," Crosby said. "We have to move by it, learn from it. And have a short memory."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Crosby, who was released from the NHL's COVID-19 protocol a few hours before the game, had one assist and a team-high five shots on goal in 21 minutes, four seconds of playing time.

• Fourth-line center Mark Jankowski returned to the Penguins' lineup after missing three games with an unspecified injury. He played 7:01, the least of any forward except Sam Lafferty (6:36).

• This is the fourth time in Flyers history that they've rallied from a three-goal deficit to defeat the Penguins, but the first time it has happened since 1980.

 • Philadelphia played without forward Joel Farabee, who entered the COVID-19 protocol. He has three goals and three assists in three games against the Penguins in 2020-21.

THE ESSENTIALS 

Boxscore
Video highlights
• NHL scoreboard
• 
Standings
• 
Statistics

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Claude Giroux, Flyers
2. Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Flyers
3. Jared McCann, Penguins

THE INJURIES

• Defenseman Juuso Riikola,  out with an unspecified upper-body injury suffered Jan. 19, has resumed practicing.

• Forward Evan Rodrigues, out since suffering an unspecified lower-body injury Jan. 25, has resumed practicing.

• Defenseman Brian Dumoulin, sidelined since suffering an unspecified lower-body injury Jan. 26, has resumed practicing.

• Winger Jason Zucker is sidelined indefinitely with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained Feb. 23.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jared McCann-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev

Sam Lafferty-Mark Jankowski-Anthony Angello

Marcus Pettersson-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-John Marino
Mark Friedman-Cody Ceci

And for Peter Laviolette's Flyers:

James van Riemsdyk-Sean Couturier-Jakub Voracek
Claude Giroux-Scott Laughton-Nolan Patrick
Oskar Lindblom-Kevin Hayes-Travis Konecny
Michael Raffl-Connor Bunnaman-Nolan Patrick

Ivan Provorov-Justin Braun
Robert Hagg-Shayne Gostisbehere
Travis Sanheim-Philippe Myers

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins are scheduled to practice Friday at noon at PPG Paints Arena before closing out their three-game series against the Flyers Saturday at 1:08 p.m at PPG Paints Arena.

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