GAME TWO RECAP (Penguins 3, Flyers 2, OT)

While it seems ungrateful to quibble with a 2-0 series lead under any circumstances, it still needs to be said: I'd prefer not to get a game-winning overtime goal with the Flyers at a two-man disadvantage. Yes, they were the second most-penalized team in the NHL this past season, and they deserved every penalty they took in Game One, and the two penalties the Flyers took in overtime were legitimate and probably has to be called, but there's still something skeevy about winning that way. And in a league like the NHL, where power play chances have a habit of evening out over the course of a game or a series, and the dispensers of karma wear striped shirts while most observers talk openly of the concept of "make-up calls," there's reason to look a gift horse like this in the mouth. Even moreso with the series heading to Philadelphia, where the crowd will fire up the Flyers, there's reason to think that not much will be called in Games Three and Four, and that what is called will look suspiciously like reparations.
The Flyers, for their part, should take encouragement out of the fact that they played exactly the way they had a month earlier, when they beat the Penguins 3-1 at Mellon Arena. In that game, and in Game Two, they played strong positional defense and took away the Penguins' ability to generate offense off the rush. They waited patiently for power play opportunities to create offense and made sure they capitalized on them. If they can play like that again, they will win either or both of their home games.
There's an interesting bit of clutchitude developing around Marc-Andre Fleury. He's not mentioned among the league's elite goaltenders, and if the Penguins win the Stanley Cup, that won't change much, as the credit will go to their centers. Despite having stats which are middle-of-pack, Fleury was 2-0 in playoff overtime games last year, and in every shootout this year when the Penguins had an opportunity to win the extra point if Fleury turned away the shooter, he prevailed.