PREFERS TEMPLE'S OFFENSE TO PRINCETON'S
Ryan Malone closed the door with a goal midway through the third period.
"A Flyers crowd is one of a kind. They came out wearing orange and screaming. I don't think we gave them the best first 10 minutes that you need in your own building.
"That's the bottom line to why Pittsburgh carried the momentum early."
That was part of Pittsburgh's game plan.
The Penguins were 0-4 in the Wachovia Center during the regular season and knew the kind of energy a tuned-up Philadelphia crowd could generate.
They planned to minimize that scenario. It was the same attitude Pittsburgh carried into New York when it took a 2-0 advantage into Game 3 at Madison Square Garden.
"That was crucial," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said of getting an early lead. "We did it against the Rangers.
"We wanted to try and dictate coming into the , and getting that two-goal lead helped. Most of the time the home team will feed from the crowd.
"It was kind of our game plan to make sure we pursue the puck really well and try to attack them as quick as we can. We ended up with the two-goal lead and that took away the emotion that they go get from the crowd."
Realistically, this series is done.
A team coming back from a 3-0 series deficit has happened only twice in NHL history - Toronto in 1942 and the New York Islanders in 1975.
The way that Pittsburgh has outplayed them, the Flyers don't figure to become the third.
That makes the goal for Game 4 tomorrow night simple.
Don't get swept.
Don't make Flyers fans have to watch the team from Eastern Pennsylvania celebrate moving on to the finals on Philadelphia ice.
It's won't be the Stanley Cup that Flyers fans desperately crave, but at least it will be something. *
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