PITTSBURGH — It would be difficult to envision a better start. The Philadelphia Flyers are set to host their first home Stanley Cup playoff games in front of fans in eight years Wednesday night, and they’ll do it with a 2-0 series lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins that they have very much earned.
Dan Vladar has been outstanding in goal. Defensively, the Flyers are locked in. Rookie Porter Martone continues to emerge. Owen Tippett has not slowed down a bit after his massive leap in early March.
Sidney Crosby has been invisible. Erik Karlsson has been a liability. The Penguins’ power play has been silenced.
Here are eight more thoughts and observations as the series shifts to South Philly.
1. Noah Cates was one of two Flyers players made available to the media before Game 2. I asked him: Has it been beneficial for a young, inexperienced team to start its first playoff series away from home?
Cates enthusiastically agreed that it was.
“I think so, honestly, yeah,” he said. “I honestly was thinking about that a little bit. Just get away from home, have the first experience here. We’re on the road, less noise around the house, or whatever it may be. Easier on the road with food — things like that. Just kind of show up, play and go to work. I definitely have thought of that, and that’s a huge thing.”
I asked Tippett the same thing after the Game 2 win.
“We’re obviously here for a sole reason and a sole purpose, having a job to do, taking all the distractions out of it, and going to work when we need to,” Tippett said.
The flip side of that is Game 3 in front of what is sure to be a rabid crowd could produce some butterflies for the home team. Combine that with an experienced Penguins group that won’t likely be intimidated, and the first half of the first period of Game 3 will be vital. It’s a near certainty that Rick Tocchet will start his effective fourth line — like he has in Games 1 and 2 — with the hope that they can help to settle everyone on the home bench down.
2. Tippett is apparently not at 100 percent health. Tocchet made him leave the ice midway through a practice before the series began, and repeated after Game 2 that the winger is “banged up.”
But no one would know that unless the coach had volunteered the information. Through two games, the Flyers already have two iconic goals — Martone’s in Game 1, and Garnet Hathaway’s in Game 2, as set up by the incredible work by Tippett short-handed.
“He’s kind of a home run hitter, right?” Tocchet said. “He’s a guy that at any time could strike gold.”
Whatever Tippett is dealing with, it doesn’t seem to be hindering him.
3. Matvei Michkov has been the Flyers’ least effective forward in the series, and it’s not particularly close. Michkov didn’t play for the final 17 minutes of the third period after losing Samuel Girard, who had a great opportunity to cut into the Flyers’ two-goal lead with a wide-open wrist shot between the circles. Prior to that, late in the second period, Michkov turned the puck over twice in the defensive zone on the same shift, forcing Vladar to make a couple of stops.
To be clear, I don’t expect Michkov to lose his place in the lineup for Game 3. Tocchet didn’t healthy scratch Michkov in the regular season, and the coach will have the benefit of last change at home, allowing him to put Michkov and his line with Cates and Denver Barkey in more advantageous situations. It would be silly to just forget about all of the good things Michkov did after the Olympic break just because he has initially struggled during his first taste of playoff hockey. If the Flyers are going to make a run, they’re probably going to need Michkov at some point.
But Tocchet can’t simply let Michkov off the hook, either. Michkov’s development doesn’t supersede winning playoff games. He’s going to have to improve as this series and the playoffs move along, and it had better happen soon, with Alex Bump waiting in the press box for an opportunity.
Last week, Tocchet spoke about the difficulty of trying to balance young players adapting to their first experiences in the playoffs, with sitting them for errors.
“You always want to give a guy a chance after he makes a mistake,” Tocchet said. “I have to make some decisions because now it’s do-or-die in games. I don’t want these guys to be nervous to make a mistake — then I’m not doing my job. There’s a sweet spot that I’ve got to find with those kids.”
One important point to keep in mind: NHL players (at least, the good ones) want coaches to hold them and their teammates accountable. It’s what makes for a winning culture.
4. Tocchet and others have mentioned how much Vladar’s leadership has given them a boost in important moments. That was apparently the case in the second period in Game 2, when the Flyers were struggling to get pucks out of their own zone, forcing Vladar to keep it scoreless.
“They were pressing, coming in waves, (and Vladar said), ‘We’re OK. Guys, don’t worry about it. Relax.,’” Tocchet explained. “He says that — he’s the goalie, he’s getting peppered a little bit, it means a lot, because now guys are like, ‘I’ve got to pick my game up, or block a shot for this guy.’”
There was a reason that Tocchet, and even Vladar, said that they weren’t worried about the goalie, despite his never having made a playoff start in his career. He’s unflappable.
The Flyers were also apparently well aware that they didn’t notch a shutout during the regular season. When I started to bring that up to Tippett after the game, he quickly cut me off, repeating the phrase “first one of the year” twice.
So was that something they were talking about on the bench late in the game, perhaps after Luke Glendening’s empty-netter with 2:05 to go in regulation?
“Not really,” Tippett said. “It’s pretty surprising the way those two (Vladar and Samuel Ersson) have played all year that it’s his first shutout, but we’ll take it right now.”
5. One reason they might not have been talking about the shutout late was because of some of the glaring, cheap shots the Penguins were throwing over the final two minutes.
It started with Kris Letang blatantly interfering with Cates with 1:47 to go, throwing a hard shoulder into Cates away from the puck. When Cam York skated toward Letang, the Penguins defenseman released a quick jab to York’s jaw, shaking him up. Anthony Mantha used that opportunity to go after Tippett, grabbing him and throwing a couple of punches, bloodying the bridge of Tippett’s nose.
Tippett was on the receiving end of another dirty hit with 19 seconds to go, when Parker Wotherspoon cross-checked him from behind, resulting in one final group meeting.
The Flyers, to their credit, kept their composure. But it did leave the feeling that this series is a bit of a powder keg. If either team has a multi-goal lead in any of the games, I wouldn’t leave the arena or turn the television off until the final horn.
6. York’s availability for Game 3 will be worth monitoring. He was getting extra attention immediately after Game 2, and Tocchet mentioned Tuesday in a video conference call that York got “a shot in the ribs,” and “he’s hurting a little bit.”
The Flyers did not skate Tuesday, so they’ll presumably have a full morning skate Wednesday at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Emil Andrae’s status is unknown, too, after he missed Game 2 with an upper-body injury and was replaced by Noah Juulsen.
The Flyers also have prospects Oliver Bonk and David Jiricek around as Black Aces, after the Phantoms’ season ended without a playoff berth.
7. Speaking of the defense, something struck me just before the game when I was looking at the line charts they hand out in the press box after warmups.
Some of us (myself included) have often made a fuss over the Flyers having a small defense group the last couple of years, particularly when York, Andrae and Jamie Drysdale are all active.
But the way they’re constructed now, the Flyers’ blue line is certainly bigger than the Penguins, led by Travis Sanheim and Rasmus Ristolainen, both 6-foot-4. The biggest defensemen the Penguins dressed for the first two games were Wotherspoon (6-1, 190 pounds) and Ryan Shea (6-1, 200 pounds). The Penguins’ three biggest defensemen — Ryan Graves, Jack St. Ivany and Ilya Solovyov — have been healthy scratches.
Sanheim and Ristolainen — when the latter isn’t getting called for ticky-tack penalties, such as finishing a hit when he doesn’t hear the whistle early in Game 1 or “roughing” Crosby in Game 2 — have both been outstanding in the series.
No one has been on the ice against Crosby at five-on-five longer than Sanheim’s 18:01. Neither team has scored a goal during those minutes, which, of course, is a significant win for the Flyers. The Penguins have only outshot the Flyers 9-6 over that span, too.
Meanwhile, Karlsson has yet to make an impact. In Game 2, he took a tripping penalty on Sanheim that negated a Penguins power play, and was one of the defensemen caught flat-footed when Tippett burst up the ice. Tippett was awarded a penalty shot when Karlsson weakly reached at him with his stick.
8. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was at Game 2. He was asked about a potential Stadium Series game in Happy Valley between the Flyers and Penguins.
“There’s been discussions over time,” Bettman told reporters. “At some point, that’s something we’re interested in pursuing. The renovations there have put things, for a period of time, on hold. But I would envision at some point we will make our way out to Happy Valley.”
The Flyers are already on record as saying that they would like that to happen. Last year, Flyers governor Dan Hilferty told me he wanted to “keep stoking the flames of that possibility.” So you can assume that’s something they’re still doing.
Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.
