PHILADELPHIA — Pushed to the brink of a sweep, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal pushed back with a vengeance, helping the Pittsburgh Penguins score nine goals in the first two periods of a 10-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night in their opening-round playoff series.
“We’ve given ourselves a chance to get back to Pittsburgh,” Crosby said. “And that’s all we wanted out of this game.”
Staal had a hat trick, Malkin scored his first two goals of the series and Crosby added one to help the Penguins cut the series deficit to 3-1. Game 5 is Friday in Pittsburgh.
Marc-Andre Fleury settled down after a shaky first period and had his best game of the series, easily outplaying counterpart Ilya Bryzgalov.
The Flyers led 3-2 when the Penguins reeled off eight straight goals to win the most lopsided game of the series.
“I just want to keep this playoff going,” Staal said. “And it was a big game from a lot of guys in the room tonight.”
Claude Giroux, Kimmo Timonen and Jakub Voracek all scored for the Flyers. Bryzgalov, shaky all series, was at his worst in Game 4. He was yanked for Sergei Bobrovsky after allowing his fifth goal of the game.
“We’re going to find out what kind of team we are, how we are built,” Flyers forward Jaromir Jagr said. “If we are the team like we think we are, we’re going to have to respond the next game.”
The Penguins were the first team to score at least 10 goals in a playoff game since the Los Angeles Kings scored 12 against the Calgary Flames on April 10, 1990, according to Stats LLC.
Senators 3, Rangers 2, OT•OTTAWA —Kyle Turris scored at 2:42 of overtime to help Ottawa tie the Eastern Conference series at 2-all.
Turris took a drop pass from Jim O’Brien and snapped a wrist shot past Henrik Lund-qvist’s glove from the left faceoff circle.
Milan Michalek and Sergei Gonchar scored in the second period for the Senators to erase a 2-0 deficit, and Craig Anderson stopped 31 shots.
Anton Stralman and Ryan Callahan scored power-play goals early in the first period for the Rangers.
Canucks vs. Kings •LOS ANGELES — Late game. The Associated Press
