Penguins punish Flyers, 5-3
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Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesPittsburgh Post-Gazette
PHILADELPHIA -- Most of these guys are too young to know the history, let alone appreciate it.
George Widman, Associated PressPenguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stops a shot by the Flyers' Ben Eager as defensman Sergei Gonchar closes in during first period action last night in Philadelphia.
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To remember when the Penguins went 15 years without a victory on this side of the state. When the most remarkable thing about their 0-39-3 streak at the Spectrum was that they actually managed to earn three ties.
All those winters when Philadelphia treated the Penguins like a 20-man pinata.
And the Penguins played victim a lot more convincingly than they played hockey.
"Forty-two games?" defenseman Ryan Whitney said after the Penguins' 5-3 victory against the Flyers at the Wachovia Center last night, "What was that, six years?"
Yeah, six years. Give or take nine.
But those days are history, in every sense. Last night's victory was the Penguins' second in a row here, and raised their record against the Flyers to 4-0. That assures them of no worse than a tie in the season series, which they'll have a chance to win for just the second time in the past 12 seasons.
They also are 10-7-2 overall and 8-1 against Atlantic Division opponents.
"It's big to win these division games," Whitney said. "Obviously, the Flyers, you like to beat these guys, but every division game is important."
The only real downside for the Penguins is that center Sidney Crosby missed part of the second period and all of the third with a sore groin. The injury will be evaluated today, at which time his status for tomorrow's game against Boston at Mellon Arena might be determined.
"It's a muscle you use a lot in hockey, so it's not the best one to be sore," Crosby said. "If it's a groin, you don't want to keep pushing it and make it worse."
Crosby, who does not have a history of groin trouble, said his problem was not caused by a specific incident, that "a couple of times I was leaning on guys, and felt it."
Crosby was around long enough to record a goal and an assist, giving him two or more points against the Flyers in six consecutive games and in nine of 12 in his career.
His six-game totals at the Wachovia Center: Six goals and eight assists.
Crosby wasn't the only Penguin to enjoy a productive evening. Whitney had a goal and two assists, Dominic Moore and Sergei Gonchar a goal and an assist each and Evgeni Malkin two assists.
One statistical flaw: The Flyers scored on three of eight power plays.
Left winger John LeClair, a healthy scratch for the Penguins' 3-1 victory against the New York Rangers Saturday, staked them to a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal 84 seconds after the opening faceoff.
He beat Philadelphia goalie Antero Niittymaki from the right hash for his second of the season 49 seconds after Flyers defenseman Joni Pitkanen was sent off for interfering with Mark Recchi.
Coach Michel Therrien had been noncommittal about dressing LeClair -- he said after the game that he had planned to use him -- but leg injuries to right winger Michel Ouellet removed any option to sit him.
Moore bumped the Penguins' advantage to 2-0 at 4:31, backhanding in a shot from the right corner of the crease after being set up by Crosby, and the Penguins had an apparent third goal waved off at 17:29, when Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher dislodged the net before a Malkin shot crossed the goal line.
Whitney got that one back 8.7 seconds before the intermission, however, flipping in a shot from the bottom of the right circle.
After Simon Gagne made the score 3-1 at 4:58 of the second, the Penguins countered 49 seconds later, when Crosby took a cross-ice feed from Whitney and beat Niittymaki from low in the right circle for his 10th.
"After they got that first one, we didn't want to give them too much of a chance to get back into it," Crosby said.
Geoff Sanderson of Philadelphia scored on a breakaway at 11:13, but the Penguins again got the goal back almost immediately.
This time, Gonchar scored from the slot at 13:41 to give the Penguins their second power-play goal.
"We seemed to answer every time they cut into our lead," Whitney said.
Until Flyers defenseman Freddy Meyer made the score 5-3 by scoring with 2.1 seconds left in regulation, anyway.
At that point, there was neither the time nor the need for the Penguins to get another goal.
"It seems like we play some good hockey games when we come here," Therrien said, "because it's a rivalry."
A one-sided one, just as it was for so many years. Except it's tilting in the other direction now.
First Published November 21, 2006 12:00 am
