Crosby inspires Penguins to series win over Flyers
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Sidney Crosby scored twice to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins into the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 5-3 comeback victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
Trailing 3-0 in the second period, the Penguins struck five unanswered goals to win their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final series 4-2.
Facing elimination for the second consecutive game and back on home ice, the Flyers took control with Mike Knuble and Joffrey Lupul scoring 51 seconds apart to grab a 2-0 first period lead.
After Daniel Briere converted a power-play chance early in the second to increase the advantage to 3-0, the Flyers had looked poised to send the ill-tempered series to a deciding Game Seven.
However, after a fight between Pittsburgh's Max Talbot and Flyers enforcer Daniel Carcillo, the Penguins seized the momentum with Ruslan Fedotenko, Mark Eaton and Crosby all tallying within a 12-minute span to send the teams into the second intermission deadlocked at 3-3.
INSPIRATIONAL FIGHT
"Max getting in that fight started things off," Crosby told reporters. "It showed a lot of guts, you don't see a lot of fighting in the playoffs but he fought a pretty tough guy.
"You just want to rally behind that.
"Anytime a guy puts himself on the line like that you want to make sure you follow it up. We just built off that and built some momentum off that fight.
Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar notched the winning goal early in the third period when he raced into the Flyers zone, stopped quickly and hammered a slap shot past Martin Biron.
Pittsburgh then turned to netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, who made several key saves to protect the one-goal cushion until Crosby clinched the series by slamming the puck into an empty net in the final minute.
"That's experience, he (Fleury) made a game-changing save with five minutes left," Crosby added. "If that goes in it's a totally different game.
"It's not the way we drew it up but we were confident the way we were playing.
"We don't want to be down 3-0 but we hung in there and showed a lot of guts to stay with it."
(Editing by John O'Brien. To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
