PHILADELPHIA — The final moments of the Penguins’ 8-5 win against the Flyers Sunday featured NBC analyst Pierre McGuire assessing the beer cans sailing over his head.
“Those have beer in them,” McGuire warned from between the benches. “It’s not like they’re empty, trust me.”
As strange and scary as it was at the time, it became a fitting end to one of the wackier games in Penguins playoff history, a Game 6 victory at Wells Fargo Center that pushed them through to the next round and potentially outranked 2012 in terms of insane stuff that has happened between these two teams.
The Penguins fought, clawed and survived a few real silver bullets being hurled their way, and now they’ll await their opponent in the Eastern Conference semifinals — Washington or Columbus.The Capitals lead that series 3-2, with Game 6 set for 7:30 p.m. Monday in Columbus.
“Things are never always going to go your way, especially in the playoffs,” goalie Matt Murray said. “There’s going to be times where you have to fight it a little bit. [Sunday] was one of those nights.
“It wasn’t a perfect game by any means. Not even close. But we got the job done. This time of year it doesn’t matter how. It just matters that you get the win. I couldn’t be more proud of the way we competed.”
The win Sunday finally should put to rest all those crazy memories from 2012. Penguins players losing their minds. Coaches trying to fight one another. A total eclipse of anything even remotely resembling goaltending.
When we look back at this one years from now, we’re going to talk about some offensive brilliance by Jake Guentzel — more on him shortly — and Sidney Crosby, but also about the work turned in by Murray, who posted two shutouts and Sunday improved to 10-1 after a playoff loss.
Game 6, however, was not Murray’s best of the series. Not even close. Which takes us to the first, weird thing that happened:
• Midway through the second period, with the Flyers enjoying a 4-2 lead after Scott Laughton scored an easy one off the rush, Sullivan had Casey DeSmith get loose.
Before Sullivan ever got word from his bullpen coach — OK, he doesn’t actually have one of those — Patric Hornqvist scored to make it 4-3. Sullivan had DeSmith sit down.
“I was considering [a goaltending change],” Sullivan would explain later, “then my gut was telling me to stay with Matt. And I’m glad I did because he made some big saves in the third.”
• Speaking of that … in a series that featured 43 goals scored, one of the biggest sequences was a four-on-three penalty kill for the Penguins midway through the third.
• Right about then was when Guentzel turned into Wayne Gretzky — completing his natural hat trick a short time later and tacking on a fourth consecutive goal for good measure.
Guentzel’s final goal came all of 10 seconds after his third. So, uh, Jake, what took so long?
“It’s almost a blur because the two came back-to-back like that,” said Guentzel, whose six goals and 13 points equal Crosby for the NHL postseason lead in those categories. “Definitely a good feeling.”
• That would be the opposite of how Flyers defenseman Radko Gudas might assess his performance. Two Gudas turnovers led directly to Penguins goals.
Suppose you could say that Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford wound up adding a depth defenseman after all.
• The game, it should be noted, also was played without Evgeni Malkin, who’s officially day to day with a lower-body injury, while linemate Carl Hagelin left early — he played just 7:44 — after a hit from Claude Giroux.
That hit might’ve been criticized in Pittsburgh, but it was lauded in Philadelphia — if for no other reason than Giroux finally made contact with something near the net. The Flyers captain signed a minus-10 on his scorecard for this series to go along with one goal and three points.
• Back to the weirdness … Hornqvist returned after a two-game absence, but apparently went all Willie “Mays” Hayes on the Penguins, integrating playmaking into his repertoire so that he’s more than a net-crasher.
Hornqvist’s feed to Guentzel on a two-on-one break to make it 7-4 would impress Crosby, Malkin or Phil Kessel.
• Justin Schultz might have broken his entire batch of sticks Sunday, a problem he maybe will want to rectify both in terms of back stock and why it’s happening before the second round.
Should we keep going with the insanity?
Certainly, why not.
The Penguins had the NHL’s most dominant power play in the regular season but put up eight goals in a series-deciding game despite getting just one chance with the extra man.
There also was Philadelphia’s Sean Couturier, who the day before Game 4 was crushed by Gudas at practice — no word on whether that’ll net him a performance bonus from Rutherford — only to return as the Flyers’ best player, on one leg.
Couturier did the best Kirk Gibson impersonation and led the Flyers with a hat trick and five points Sunday … only to fall short.
Couturier’s saucer pass to Laughton set the stage for the Flyers to pull ahead, 4-2. At that point, a Game 7 Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena seemed possible, if not likely. Maybe the Flyers would even pay David Volek to show up.
But Hornqvist scored, Guentzel pushed the Penguins ahead early in the third, and the Penguins blew the game open from there.
Bryan Rust scoring into an empty-net — only his ninth goal in the Penguins’ past 10 chances to eliminate an opponent — put the (appropriate) final touches on an eventful afternoon.
One that was fun and crazy and almost cathartic. A beat-down of the Flyers that finally will supersede that series from six years ago.
“There were a lot of momentum swings in the game,” Sullivan said. “There were two-goal swings where you think you’re down and out. Then the next line goes over the boards, they score a goal, we get excited, and we get back into the game. It was one of those games.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article miscalculated the number of goals Guentzel scored in the third period.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: April 22, 2018, 7:55 p.m.
