Flyers More Than Good Enough to Force Game Six

The fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins arrived at Mellon Arena on Thursday night in hopes that their team, owners of a three-games-to-one series lead over the Philadelphia Flyers, could end their first round series with a win and become the second team in the conference to advance to the next round.

The crowd came dressed right for sure, as the locals, in a nod to the disenfranchised fans of Manitoba, came dressed for a "Winnipeg White Out" -- Pittsburgh style.

Unfortunately for the Penguins, the Flyers were having none of it. After surviving a first period where they were outshot by the Penguins, 15-5, the Flyers shifted into a workmanlike style of playoff hockey that stifled Pittsburgh offensively and erased their power play once again. Toss in a solid, if unspectacular performance from Philadelphia goalie Martin Biron (28 saves), and it all added up to a neat 3-0 victory for the Flyers that extended the series, forcing the Penguins to travel back to Philadelphia for a Game 6.

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After a scoreless first period where Biron kept the Penguins off the board, the Flyers finally broke through at 6:32 of the second period when career plugger Aaron Asham took a long-range slapper from just inside the blue line along the left wing boards. Marc-Andre Fleury couldn't do much more than watch the puck rocket past him and into the back of the net as the shot beat him to his glove side for a 1-0 Philadelphia lead.

A few minutes later on the other end of the ice, it appeared that Evgeni Malkin had tied the game after using his skate to redirect the puck onto his stick before sweeping it into the net past Biron. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, a video review revealed that Malkin's stick never touched the puck before it crossed the goal line, and the scopre was wiped out.

While taking a goal off the board certainly game most of Pittsburgh some agita, it appears that fans in Western Pennsylvania who weren't inside the Mellon Arena didn't see significant portions of the game. According to the ComcastCares Twitter feed, a lightning strike knocked out the feed for FSN Pittsburgh, driving thousands of fans online for a time to listen to game audio or access any one of a number of illegal video streams to watch the game on Versus.

The Flyers streched their lead to 2-0 at 3:25 of the third on a goal by Claude Giroux, and then extended it again a little less than 10 minutes later when winger Mike Knuble scored his first goal of the playoffs. While Knuble might have scored the goal, the tally owed a lot to Philadelphia's Mike Richards.

Richards, who was sprung on a breakout pass by defenseman Matt Carle, drove up ice with more than a stride on Pittsburgh's defense before unleashing a fearsome slap shot at Fleury from just inside the left wing faceoff circle. Fleury made a pad save, but the puck rebounded straight onto Knuble's stick as he drove to the net from the right wing point. Knuble fired a slap shot into the open net from inside the slot to make it 3-0. From there, Philadelphia never looked back.

In the final minutes, it became abundantly clear that the Penguins were getting frustrated, and things boiled over on the ice. Team captain Sidney Crosby took a pair of minor penalties in the third period, with the second coming in the last minute of the game when he decided to send a message to Richards in the form of a nice crosscheck that sent the Philadelphia captain to the ice.

After Crosby went to the box, Pittsburgh winger Bill Guerin took the opportunity to start chirping with the Philadelphia bench, something he'll have at least one more opportunity for in this series.