After an offensive onslaught by the Pittsburgh Penguins in game four against the Philadelphia Flyers, I still don’t see any way for Pittsburgh to come back from this 3-1 deficit that they face.
Coming into game four, the Penguins were scoring four goals per game and giving up over six goals per game.
The last time I checked, defense still wins championships and neither the Flyers nor Penguins have shown much defensive play at all. Most of the time it’s hard to even tell if there are goalies and defenders on the ice.
Every single game has had at least seven goals scored total between the two teams with the Flyers winning games one, two and three by finals of 4-3, 8-5, and 8-4, respectively.
Wednesday night, the Penguins offense showed up stronger than it had in the entire series and won by a final of 10-3 and set a new NHL record of 45 total goals scored through the first four games of a playoff series.
It’s difficult to make comments on the actual play of the game because of every game having such sporadic play throughout. The flow of the series has been completely ridiculous.
The wild scoring, fights, dirty plays and cheap shots, have made the series look more like a circus in the arena over a hockey game being played.
Any true hockey fan shouldn’t be excited to be watching this series. This series for a true fan of the game of hockey is a nightmare for you.
I knew that coming into this series we were going to see crazy hockey after the way that the regular season concluded but I suspected that both teams would step up their defense and play in some 4-3 and 3-2 games.
Instead of that happening, both team’s defenses have played sloppy all series, goaltending has been nonexistent, especially from Marc-Andre Fleury and while it might be exciting to watch, it’s not good playoff hockey.
Whether the Penguins pull off this most unlikely comeback and win three more games, or the more likely scenario that the Flyers will close out the series in game five in Pittsburgh, neither one of these teams are playing defense at a level that’ll get them past the next round.
Every other playoff series that I have seen so far in the 2012 NHL playoffs has had good defense, close games, and while there have been fights and big hits in these other games, I haven’t seen any of them get out of control like the Penguins v. Flyers.
As a Penguins fan, I’d love to see them comeback and pull off a great upset but at this point, I just want to see this terrible series end. So, in the hope of this ending soon, Go Flyers!
