Lost amid the satisfaction among the Flyers that they made things a bit tougher on the Pittsburgh Penguins' playoff hopes with a 4-1 rout on Sunday (see game story), was their commitment to team defense.
Sean Couturier’s line with Matt Read and Brayden Schenn, who on Monday was named one of the NHL's "Three Stars" for last week, was plus-2 and shut down Sidney Crosby. It was the fifth time in the past seven meetings with Pittsburgh that Crosby failed to register a point.
“Well, whenever you’re out there against [Evgeni] Malkin or Crosby, you’ve got to be aware of where they are and try to limit their offense,” Couturier said.
“They’re two good players, and you’ve got to respect that. You just try to control the puck and play in their end and make it hard for them to have the puck.”
There’s no question that Couturier has gotten into Crosby’s head in recent years because that’s who he mostly matches up against in these games.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” Couturier said of mind games. “I just focus on what I have to do and try to keep the puck, control the puck. If I can shut them down, [it's] great, but if we can get two points, it’s even better. I just try to do my job.”
Blocked shots
Flyers defenseman Nick Schultz, who will likely win this season’s Barry Ashbee Trophy as the club’s top defenseman, had a game-high seven blocked shots against Pittsburgh.
That tied his season high set on Oct. 11 during the Flyers' 4-3 shootout loss to Montreal at the Wells Fargo Center.
Several of those blocks came earlier in the game when Pittsburgh was pressing the offensive attack during its 47 shot barrage that goalie Steve Mason faced (see story).
“Yeah, I think we played better,” Schultz said. “The start of the game wasn’t great. Mason played extremely well and we battled hard. Guys were doing their jobs and playing hard and it was nice to get a win.”
Not every goalie enjoys having his defense block shots. Many want to see every shot. Mason has no issues with it and feels his job is to make the saves on shots he’s supposed to see.
“You saw, even pucks [that went] through, floaters, he was kind of finding and seeing everything,” Schultz said of Mason, whose 46 saves tied his season best. “He was tracking the puck really well and made some huge saves. He made some big stops for us and he’s been great all year.”
Schultz leads the Flyers — by far — with 158 blocked shots. Michael Del Zotto is second with 110. No other Flyers defensemen are in triple digits.
Incidentally, Del Zotto and Mark Streit each have nine goals. If they both score 10, it will mark the first time the Flyers have had two defensemen in double-figure goal scoring since the 2000-01 season.
That year, Eric Desjardins led all Flyers defensemen with 15 goals and Dan McGillis was second with 14.
Misconduct
Early in the third period, the Penguins had a lengthy delayed penalty coming against them as the Flyers played keep away with the puck and thoroughly frustrated Pittsburgh trying to add to their 2-1 lead.
When Chris Kunitz finally touched the puck for the Penguins, he shot it out of frustration at the Flyers’ empty net (see 10 observations).
That action caused an immediate melee on the ice with both Flyers captain Claude Giruox and madman across the water, Jakub Voracek, charging nearly 100 feet diagonally to get at Kunitz.
When the penalties were all sorted out, Kunitz’s actions were clear: he wanted to even things up and he did. Not only did the Flyers lose a power play (it was 4 on 4) with Giroux going off, but Voracek was smacked with a 10-minute misconduct penalty.
“Yeah I didn’t even get to him,” Voracek said. “I tried, but I couldn’t. I mean it’s still a scrum and I hope if we did the same thing they would have acted the same way.
“I think it was unnecessary, he knew he had the advantage. I think that shot was completely unnecessary and we have to step up for our teammate.”
Keep in mind, Voracek is in the NHL scoring race with Crosby and is just two points behind him with 79. Those 10 minutes off the ice represent 10 minutes when he might have been able to catch Crosby.
“He’s the best player in the league, in the world,” Voracek said. “If he would be healthy, he would probably be winning by a bigger margin. I don’t look at it this way. I play him head to head and in the end we are out of the playoffs and that’s all that matters.”