Latest / Hattrick's Unofficial Flyers Podcast / Episode 23: Flyers WIN Game 2 vs Penguins! | Apr 21, 2026
Transcript
- Rick Mullen: Hey Flyers fans, welcome to Hatrix Unofficial Flyers podcast. I'm Rick Mullen. I'll be your host tonight. And we are going to talk about the Flyers versus the Penguins Stanley Cup playoffs. First round, game two. What a game last night. Who would have thought the Flyers would have come out of a two game away against the Penguins in Pittsburgh? and leave that series with a two-nothing lead coming home on Wednesday night. Not me. I thought the Flyers were going to split it. I thought they were going to lose the first one and win the second one. But the Flyers won both. They won both. Flyers win last night three to nothing against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Three to nothing. Held them off the board. Malkin, Crosby, LeTang, Carlson. Didn't matter. Nobody could beat Vlad last night. He got his first shutout of the 25-26 season. It was a good game. It was a little nervous because the Flyers didn't look as dominant in the beginning of this game. It was a little hectic from an offensive perspective. Defensively, the Flyers looked pretty good. Not bad. You know, they actually had a really good game. So let's kind of talk about the stats. So last night, Flyers went three-zip. Philadelphia Flyers had 24 shots, the Pittsburgh Penguins 27. The Flyers had 48 hits to Pittsburgh's 32. And if my memory serves me right, think they said after the end of the first period, the Flyers had like 31 hits, something like that, just alone in the first period, like 28 or 31, something like that. So, you know, I think they had 40 hits last game, 40-41 hits. Tonight they finished with 48. But the first period the Flyers had, according to the stats, somewhere around 28 to 30 hits in one period. In one period. was hell of a first period. ⁓ So anyhow, Flyers had 48 hits, the Penguins 32. Penalty minutes, the Penguins had 52 penalty minutes. They got a little chippy at the end, did some dirty stuff, you know, just like typical Penguins do, but this time they were held accountable. At the end of the game, during the game they got away with murder again, but it just seems to be what the refs do whenever we play the Penguins. Flyers had 30 penalty minutes. ⁓ The refs gave the Flyers so many penalties last night. I think the Penguins had like five penalties in one period, or power plays in one period, something like that. It was crazy. It was crazy. They didn't call anything on them. Their goalie tripped our guys. They were high sticking. They were trying to rip helmets off again, hooking, doing all kinds of stuff. you know, the refs just pretty much put their whistle away when it came to the Penguins, you know, calling penalties. So the flyers, what they had one, two, three, they three penalties called on them in the first period to one for Eric Carlson. ⁓ Second period. rest caught up a little bit. gave two to the Penguins, one to the Flyers. Third period, it was a nasty period. It was dirty. It was chippy. The Flyers had three penalties and the Penguins had like what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, like eight penalties. So it was all like roughing, misconduct, boarding, tripping, hooking, all that good stuff. So it was a tough game last night. The Penguins came out. They played hard in the beginning of the first period. The Flyers were, you know, trying to counter and, it was hard for the Flyers ⁓ to any offensive opportunities. It was definitely something that ⁓ they struggled with last night. had ⁓ for good, like 10 minutes of that first period, ⁓ they get much offensive opportunities. They were playing defense. They were really trying to shut the Penguins down and they did. They did a really good job, but because they were doing that, their offensive pressure did not look good. They didn't have good breakouts from their end. They were missing on passes. They were just dumping or flipping the puck up high a lot of times. So instead of those breakouts, skate outs of our end, was a dumping, flick it up high and hope we could get to the puck. And it didn't work too well for us. was like one of those things where it... They struggled, they struggled. So anyhow, like at the 13, so the, I'm sorry, the first period ends zip zip tie going into locker room and know, flyers and penguins come out the second period and it was a struggle again. the flyers didn't look too, too strong offensively, but they were playing a very good defensive game. Vlad Lidaar, he was playing really strong. He was, he was doing everything he can to keep us in it. And he did. I'm not saying the Penguins had a lot of chances, like a lot of good quality chances, but they had chances. They were shooting a lot, you know, trying, trying to figure out a way to beat Vlad, maybe get a rebound or a tip in or something along those lines. they, they didn't. Vlodar shut the door on them, closed it tight and gave them nothing all night long. Three nothing flyers. And we'll say it again, three nothing flyers. Game two in Pittsburgh, flyers blank them, blank them. ⁓ at the 1339 mark of the second period, Porter Martone from Travis connect me and Christian Dvorak. ⁓ put them our tone scores. PM 94 big Marty puts another one in that this kid is incredible. He's got two game winning goals as a rookie. I think if he gets one more, he ties the NHL record. So I think he's like got two in his debut. His first two playoff games, he's got. both game winners over the last two. he puts in another one, another game winner on Wednesday night, you'll see him tie the league league from like 1939, something like that by a rookie who scored three game winners in their first three playoff debuts. So anxious, I'm praying he does it. that would be a fantastic history for him. be in the books for a really long time, if not forever with that kind of 1743 mark. Garnet Hathaway, short-handed goal from Owen Tippett. And this play was so incredible. The puck goes down in the left corner. Tippett's coming around behind in that and coming up the wall in the Penguins end. And he's getting checked and he knows it. So he turns his body a little bit sideways or backwards to kind of absorb that check. And as the Penguins hitting him, he throws the puck like backwards. through the defenseman and skates backwards a little bit, basically passing it to himself. He flipped the puck behind the defenseman. was, it's hard to explain. You have to just see it, but ⁓ he passes to himself pretty much through the defenseman backwards, jumps behind the guy, grabs it, starts skating into the corner. It was Le Tang, I'm pretty sure it Le Tang again. They hook him, he falls down on one knee, almost loses the puck. but somehow he doesn't. gets up, he takes two or three strides, looks like he's gonna rifle a rocket shot at the net. The other defenseman bites and he doesn't. Tip it, throws it across the crease. Skinner's in the corner, like being aggressive, he stepped out for that shot, which left the net wide open. He throws it across the slot and this is where it gets ugly guys because who is standing there but Garnet Hathaway. And I'm thinking, ⁓ my God, I hope he sinks it. it's, and this really happened really fast, but my mind was able to think like, ⁓ my God, it's Garnet halfway. He's going to blow this just like he blew the, open netter. And ⁓ he didn't typically sends it over to the slot and Garnet knocks it right into an open net. Flyers go up to nothing in the second period. That's it to nothing second period. So now we go into the third period. And it's two nothing the whole way. And it was another hard period. Penguins are getting dirty. they're hooking, checking, ⁓ poorly hitting, tripping, doing their typical penguin stuff. They're losing their temper. ⁓ Mantha, know, grabs on to Tippett towards the end of that game there and like lands three or four punches into his face with his glove on, ⁓ splitting nose open. ⁓ Of course, there's nothing on the news, at least that I saw holding him accountable for misconduct, suspension, whatever it is. typical, just typical Pittsburgh Penguins dirty play. They can't win. They want to hurt you. And that's it. That's what they do. They're poor losers. They don't know how to lose nicely. So anyone that beats them, usually they try to hurt the other team. going into these last two games, because I'm going to hope that the Flyers can close this down in four. I called five and I'm still sticking to that, but I'm hoping they could do it in four and get away from this team before this Penguin team hurts somebody and takes one or two of our players, our kids, our stars out of the rest of the series for the playoffs. But anyhow, 17-55 mark at the third period. You're looking at an empty netter by ⁓ Luke Glendening. It was a Sean Katori a garnet halfway assist and Sean Katori. He actually had a stretch really hard like diving forward to poke the puck past the Penguins defenseman and over to Luke Lindenning who slid in and stuffed an open netter and the Flyers win three nothing. Really good game. Really good game. After the ⁓ game, there was a little bit of talk from target and he had some feedback. they're Their response to everything has been very business like. ⁓ Even Trevor Zegras, he's not smiling. He's not making jokes or laughing. He's very business like. The message across the board from every player and the coaches are even kill. This is even kill. We're taking it day by day. Even kill. We still got more to do, which is great. They know it. They're not too carried away. I'm sure behind the scenes, they're pumped. having fun. and they're they're enjoying this. that bus ride home train ride home, whatever they did must have been a blast because they left Pittsburgh up two games to none. ⁓ Tuckett's was a little ⁓ was You know, I mean, in all honesty, ⁓ I have a thing poor to say about Rick Tuckett and the playoffs. He has this team ready to play. This team has bought in. They bought in not just the system. but they bought into each other. They're covering each other's backs. They're picking up the player on the ice who actually makes a mistake. Our goalie is standing on his head. He comes over to the bench when games are tight and he rah rah rahs the team on. we're okay guys, little heart. We're okay. Let's go. Get back in there. You know, ⁓ he's his part. The team's doing their part. ⁓ Travis ⁓ absolute animal. been out there for like 26 minutes last night. ⁓ Incredible. looks fantastic. He's playing some big minutes. Risto's playing some big minutes. You know, there's, remember we talked about 48 hits last night by the Flyers. If you look at the stats for the Flyers for hits, Owen Tippett last night led the team tied with Garnet Hathaway at seven hits apiece. Seven. Travis Konekne had six. It's funny because if you look at Sean Couturier, they gave him no hits for the night. Zero. And I know he hit. I watched him hit quite a few times, but they gave him zero hits. Zero. So I think that whoever was running the stats last night were tired of watching Sean Couturier tear up the Penguins, knocking people on their butts. And it had to be a Pittsburgh guy that was counting hits. And he just said, you know what, we can't. We can't deal with this Sean Couturier anymore. Give him a goose egg for hits for the night. And he did. They did. They gave him a goose egg of zero. Didn't happen. I watched Couturier land some hits last night. So anyhow, funny to see that stat. ⁓ When you look at Mavy Mishkov, Mavy Mishkov is absolutely struggling right now in the playoffs. He's struggling. He's trying. I know when he gets out there, but... When we do notice him, or least when I noticed him on the ice, it was always in our end. The Penguins were cycling and cycling and getting chances and getting chances and we needed to stop it to play. And whenever that really happened, it was always Mavie Mishkov on the ice. So he's struggling with the speed of this game. He can't keep up with it. He holds the puck a little too long and they just catch him and like, you know, run them off the boards and take the puck from them or force them to throw a bad play. He really has not had a good series at all and that's okay. You know, he's allowed not to have a good series That's why other team members have to step up like big Marty Martone, right? And that's and that's okay, but I just wish he looked a little normal But he doesn't he looks pretty pretty poor and if you look at his estimated time on ice last night He had the lowest time or second lowest time on ice. He had what seven minutes and 54 seconds The only one below him who had five minutes and 45 seconds was Noah Jolson. That was it. You know, he's not getting a ton of minutes at all. Not at all. Denver Barkey had around 853. Luke Glenn Denning had like 941. Mishkoff again, 754. Glenn Denning, I'm sorry, Jolson 545. So something's going on there with Matt Vane. I don't know if he's hurt. He just don't have the speed. He can't keep up. He's... doesn't have something's not working for a match. I know this is going to be hard to say. I know some people might say you can't do this, but I would sit Matt, very much got the first game at home. I'd give him some rest, let him get his legs back from under him again. We're up to nothing in the series. Get get bump in the lineup, give bump a shot at the lineup, give him a spot. Matt Vey hasn't been contributing. He's actually been a detriment when he was on the ice mostly for these last two games. So give him a rest, give him a sit, light the kid up, light him up, fire him up, fire him up that he got caught, that he's a healthy scratch. Maybe he'll dig deeper and he'll play a little bit better for that game four. But I would sneak bump in there and I would give bump an opportunity at game three at home. Definitely that's what I would do. And again, I know people might say, hey, Shouldn't do that. This kid needs to learn. And the only way he's going to learn is he's going to play. Well, he's not playing. He's getting bad minutes and he's making bad mistakes and he's squeezing this stick. Yeah. I think that's worse. ⁓ he did play two games. He got two games under his belt. He didn't look good either game. Let him sit one and then throw them back in. But I would bring bumping and give bump an opportunity for game three. Yeah, it's just me. But anyhow, the penguins, the penguins look lost out there. They look lost. I Absolutely love seeing Crosby cry. I love seeing a Malkin cry and that's all they were doing. Manth is now crying. The whole entire Pittsburgh team is just crying because they cannot figure out Rick Tocquett's defensive system. They can't figure out how to beat it. They can't figure out how to cycle that puck and get some good shots. They can't figure out how to get that back door pass through to an open guy because the Flyers are blocking all the lanes. ⁓ it's good to see it's fantastic watching the penguin struggle. I hope that God, the next two games, they struggle too. And this is over in four, but again, Crosby, Malkin losing their minds. They're not happy campers either as Anthony Manta. ⁓ they didn't make zero. They made zero changes to their lineup from what I know. I don't believe they made any changes. If I missed one and it was like maybe a small one, but from what I know, they ran it back with the same lineup. They ran it back with the same system. The system's not working. This Penguins team wants to skate through that neutral zone and the Flyers are clogging it. They're giving them no opportunities. They're stepping up and hitting them. They're just not getting through. And in all reality, you if you look back into like the seventies Flyers, like this was kind of the same thing. Like the seventy Flyers clogged that neutral zone up. The other teams, you know, You got to dump the puck in and you got to chase it. And the Penguins aren't built for that. know, one, they're too old. They're just too old. They're not fast enough at this point. know, a couple of years ago, they probably could have done it and they can still pull off a couple now. But to run a whole game, dumping and chasing, dumping and chasing, I just don't, I just don't see it happening. I just, they just don't have that team to do that. But in order to get past this system, if the Flyers continue to play this way, The penguins have to dump and chase. got thrown in a corner and go get it and they have to beat the Flyers to it. And it's going to be awfully hard for them to beat it when you have a guy like Sandheim playing 26 minutes out there and he's fast and he can get to that puck. So I think the penguins are in trouble. I don't know if they can adjust. I don't think they can change their game. So I think if the Flyers can continue to play at this level, which I have no doubt they can. This night was a little hard for them from a offensive side, like I said, but from a defensive side, they've been able to stay on this game for 12 games now, like 12 games. So they've been playing playoff hockey for 12 games. They've been playing this defensive tight system, making the other team chase, not giving them any opportunities. And I think they can continue it. The part that I hope they can fix the Flyers is what Rick Tauke had mentioned last night after the game, which is, you know, he felt that they struggled on their breakouts that they were flipping the puck too much in the air or dumping it too many times down the ice to nobody. And, we said this before, in all honesty, there's two ⁓ plays that really the game. ⁓ And in my it hits because if you're not hitting the team, the other team will skate against you. If you are hitting, you're going to force turnovers, bad mistakes, bad passes, things like that. So that will dictate opportunities, hits and take away opportunities. But ⁓ Flipping this puck down the ice is the other end of this game, which hurt the Flyers last night. Thank God they were able to score three. But if you just keep getting the puck and just sky-hying it, like flip passes out of the zone, all we're doing again is giving that puck back to them. And they're just getting the puck and coming back in. And that's tiring out our defense. It's tiring out our lines. It's tiring out Vlidar, who has to continually keep playing in our end. You can't you can't do that. The Flyers do have to figure out a way to break out better and not just toss the puck out. So and Taked said that too. You he said that he felt that they flipped it out too much that they have to have to fix that. So hopefully going into game three, we see just as good a defensive team as we saw the last two games, but they figure out a better system to break out and get the puck down in the Penguin zone and spend some time down there instead of just keep. giving the buck away to them and them coming back at us and putting us on our heels the whole game. So really good turnout. Again, three nothing flyers last night. I didn't expect to come home with two games. I will be down the game tomorrow and I will also be down the game on Saturday. I can't wait to hear the building. It's going to go crazy, especially coming home two to zip. I think these fans are going to go absolutely bonkers tomorrow night. I'm going to be one of them. My son will be the other one, Sean. We're going to go crazy. We're going to let them hear it. We're going to cheer for them hard. We're going to hope for another victory. We're going to hope for another game where Sid, the old man, the elder gets no points. We're going to hope that, you know, Malcolm loses his mind and gets penalties and gets thrown out. We're going to hope that none of our flyers get hurt by these stupid penguins who just can't control themselves. And we're going to hope for a big win, a big win going into games. for on Saturday. So, anybody have anything for us, please use our mailbag. It's hatrixpodcast99 at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Something you want to talk about, let us know. You can find us on ⁓ Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Facebook. We have our own website. Go to our website and subscribe. Go to YouTube and subscribe. love to see us get more subscribers. do have a lot of views. looking and there's a lot of users, a lot of you guys listening, ⁓ just subscribing or liking. So do me a favor, like and subscribe. Let's get some followers out there and continue to grow this. Hopefully you enjoy these podcasts and we'll keep going. ⁓ And this is for ⁓ my I love to talk about hockey. I love to talk about the Flyers and hopefully I'm doing a half decent enough job that you guys are enjoying the shows and ⁓ I'm going to try to continue them and see how we do. And hopefully we get better and better as the years go by here and we continue these podcasts. So again, thank you for listening. Hope to see you like and subscribe. Can't wait till tomorrow night, Wednesday night at home. Go Flyers.