DK'S GRIND FEED

"Yeah, this sucks," Erik Karlsson was telling me at his stall late Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, still still soaked to the pores, still stuck in his skates. "But this wasn't where the series was lost. Not at all."

Nope. Not at all.

But it was, in reality, lost:

Flyers 1, Penguins 0, overtime.

That was the final of Game 6 of this first-round Stanley Cup playoff series Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, this after Cam York's seemingly harmless flick from the point somehow sailed past Arturs Silovs, who'd managed to make this mind-blowing save mere seconds earlier:

He was brilliant. Don't bury him over this. Or over anything. He showed maybe more than anyone on the roster amid the Penguins' riveting bid to become the fifth team in NHL history to rally back from a 3-0 series deficit, putting up a 1.52 goals-against average and .939 save percentage following Stuart Skinner's three losses.

As Ryan Shea would tell me, "Arty was our best player."

Don't bury anyone else on the ice over it, either. Heed Karlsson's assessment instead.

Or Sidney Crosby's: "I think we all had a lot of belief that we were going to dig ourselves out of it, and I think our game showed that. It’s just unfortunate that we got behind early in the series."

Or Bryan Rust's: “We can be proud of the effort. We can be proud of the way we tried to fight back. It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to find it a little bit faster.”

Yeah, unfortunate.

Or any other adjective anyone might apply to the Penguins' non-performance in Games 1-3, up to and including ill-prepared, based on their inability to systematically penetrate the Philadelphia blue line until Game 4. Once they finally found the answer -- to push up ice with faster passes to catch the Flyers' defenseman flat-footed, an adjustment Rick Tocchet would praise here earlier this week -- the deficit created by that delay was too deep.

That's my perspective, anyway.

And look, whatever.

MUCH MORE TO COME