By Annie Ross
Say this about the Flyers:
They are terrible.
But they find new ways to show how terrible they are that would be entertaining if they weren’t so pathetic!
Patric Hornqvist and Bryan Rust scored 39 seconds apart early in the third period to tie it, Jake Guentzel’s second of the night evened it again with 64 seconds left in regulation and Sidney Crosby’s deflection 1:48 into overtime lifted the Penguins to a 5-4 victory over woeful Flyers.
The Penguins finished with 52 shots, the last coming when Crosby deftly redirected Kris Letang’s shot from the point over Brian Elliott and into the net for the 11th overtime winner of his career, tied with Mario Lemieux and Evgeni Malkin for most in franchise history.
”I had a thought that (Letang) might come to me,” Crosby said. ”But ultimately it’s up to the guy with the puck to see what’s there. He made a great read and I was happy to see that go in.”
Guentzel and Crosby both finished with three points, and the Penguins have won two straight following a three-game losing streak. Just as important as the victory may have been the way Pittsburgh went about it. After letting the Flyers score three times in the second to go up 3-1, Pittsburgh dominated.
”We came out hard in the third,” Crosby said. ”I think we were all pretty disappointed with our second, allowing them to get back in the game and carry the play the whole period. Came out hard, got a big goal early to get us going and then just kind of fed off of that.”
Sean Couturier collected his team-high 14th goal for the Flyers. Shayne Gostisbehere and Travis Konecny each scored their third of the season, but the Flyers let a two-goal lead going into the third period evaporate for the second time in four days. Michael Raffl’s pretty deke around Jarry put the Flyers up 4-3 with 3:41 left in regulation but it wasn’t enough. Elliot made 47 saves but could do little to stop Crosby’s 10th goal of the season and fourth in his last four games.
The Flyers are winless in its last eight games (0-4-4), the team’s longest slide since an 0-8-2 stretch in February, 2008.
”We’ve got to finish one of these,” Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. ”There’s really not much more to be said other than that. We’ve got to finish one of these. We’re in position night after night and we were in position again tonight.”
