Penguins Capitalize on Philadelphia Flyers in Battle of PA | 2/25/2024

The Penguins played against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday, February 25th at the PPG Paints Arena. Pittsburgh held the Flyers off for a 7-6 final. Sidney Crosby recorded four points (one goal, three assists)… Crosby has 129 points in 87 career games against the Flyers (55 goals, 74 assists), the most by any player against the Philadelphia Flyers in NHL history. Bryan Rust scored two goals and recorded an assist for the Penguins before leaving with an upper-body injury midway through the third period.

Flyers lineup against the Penguins:

Tippett – Frost – Atkinson

Farabee – Couturier – Foerster

Cates – Poehling – Hathaway

Deslauries – Laughton – Lycksell

York – Sanheim

Seeler – Walker

Staal – Drysdale

Petersen

Ersson

Penguins lineup against the Flyers:

 Rakell – Crosby – Rust

O’Connor – Malkin – Puustinen

Smith – Eller – Bemtrom

Harkins – Acciari – Carter

Joseph – Letang

Pettersson – Karlsson

Graves – Ruhwedel

Jarry

Nedeljkovic

   Travis Sanheim put the Flyers in a 1-0 lead early into the first period at 17:49, deflecting off Scott Laughton’s shot. Tying it 1-1 with his 32nd goal of the season, Sidney Crosby scores a wrister at 10:22 just outside the crease off a rebound. Bryan Rust gives Pittsburgh the 2-1 lead after he redirected Marcus Pettersson’s shot at 2:45 of the first frame.

   Tying the game 2-2 just 55 seconds into the middle frame – Tyson Foerster struck his 12th goal of the season with a wrist shot around Tristan Jarry’s left pad. Bryan Rust scored his second of the night to put the Penguins back on top from the high slot on the power play. He scored a snap shot, marking his sixth goal in the past seven games, and also has an active five-game point streak against the Flyers. In his Penguins debut, Emil Bemstrom pushed it to 4-2 at 6:22 of the second period. Bemstrom scored a wrister that had clipped Cal Petersen’s glove during the power play. Travis Sanheim scored his second of the game with a one-timer to make it a 4-3 game… Scott Laughton tied it 4-4 at 2:24.

   With his third goal in the past three games, Drew O’Connor gave Pittsburgh the lead. O’Connor scored a short-handed goal from a sharp angle with a one-timer that was set up by Evgeni Malkin. Rickard Rakell extended the lead to 6-4 when he took a one-handed pass from Sidney Crosby from behind the net to bury a wrist shot at the left post at 11:22 of the third period. Cutting it to 6-5, Cam York scored his seventh of the season with a snap shot. Kris Letang pushed it to 7-5, however, Tyson Foerster made sure to cram another in there on the power play for the 7-6 final.

Sidney Crosby on the Penguins’ big win against the Flyers: “We need two points. It’s a big two points. We know the situation with the standings, games in hand, and all that stuff. So from here on in, we just need to grab points and I think getting the win last game and trying to build off that going to the road trip was really important. We know it’s a challenge in front of us but hopefully, we can build off this one.”

Drew O’Connor on the 7-6 victory: “It’s probably not the way we hoped to win but that’s a team we’re chasing and two points in regulation against them is huge. We’ll take them how we can get them. Obviously, we want to limit some of their offensive chances a bit more maybe next time, but it’s a huge win.”

Notes:

– This was Sidney Crosby’s second four-point game of the season and the first since he had gotten three goals and recorded an assist against the Columbus Blue Jackets on November 14th.

– Both Rickard Rakell and Kris Letang had a goal and an assist… Marcus Pettersson recorded two assists.

– Tristan Jarry made 15 saves for Pittsburgh and Cal Petersen made 25 saves for Philadelphia.

– Travis Sanheim had a goal and an assist… Both Tyson Foerster and Scott Laughton had two goals and an assist.

– Travis Konecny missed his second game straight due to an upper-body injury… He currently leads the Philadelphia Flyers with 54 points in 57 games (27 goals, 27 assists).

– Jamie Drysdale left in the second period after he had taken a hit by Jansen Harkins.