[Phils20]

Sorry folks, didn't get to see the game last night!

Here is the local scoop on the game!

Flyers look sloppy in loss to Penguins

By ED MORAN
Philadelphia Daily News
morane@phillynews.com
JOHN STEVENS was pressed this week to give his team a half-season evaluation. When he got past how pleased he was with the things that have gone right, he said the one place he wanted immediate improvement was holding on to the puck.
The Flyers did their best to illustrate the coach's point last night, playing fast and loose, turning the puck and momentum over to the Pittsburgh Penguins early and often and eventually losing to their struggling cross-state rivals, 4-2, in the Wachovia Center.
"When you turn the puck over, usually something bad happens, and when you do it that often, something bad happens," said defenseman Kimmo Timonen.
"We've got to learn from this. We can't turn the puck over like we did and we've got to move forward."
The game was probably the sloppiest effort the Flyers have turned in recently and stopped their home win streak at eight games while giving Pittsburgh only its second win in nine games.
It also dropped them back into second place in the Atlantic Division, one point behind the Rangers, who beat the Islanders last night. And it probably didn't help that the crowd gave Sidney Crosby a little extra incentive to play up to his talent, chanting "Crosby [stinks]" throughout the first period.
"The Kid" set up the first goal after stripping Mike Richards of the puck, and assisted on the fourth in a three-goal second period that put the game out of reach for the Flyers.
"Yeah, we created a lot," said Crosby. "They're a pretty good team defensively, and we did a great job of getting scoring chances in some good areas, and that's great if we get those chances, and most of the time they'll go in."
The Flyers tried a third-period comeback and got a goal from Joffrey Lupul, but three penalties in a row, including a bench minor for too many men on the ice, killed the building momentum.
"It was probably a matter of miscommunication of who was going," Stevens said. "That penalty is one we can probably live with. The other ones we have to do without. They can probably be eliminated late in the third period."
The Flyers will now pack their bags and head out on the road for back-to-back games in Florida tomorrow and Friday. They will need to put this game behind them and keep looking for points.
"It's just one game," said Richards. "We're going to have those games. I got hit twice in the face with the puck, which usually never happens, and it's just one of those you learn from and move on from and put it in the memory bank."
If not for two bad bounces, the first period would have ended scoreless. But two fortunate hops of the puck at both ends and it ended instead at 1-1.
The Flyers got the first. Simon Gagne chipped the puck into the wall behind the net and when Marc-Andre Fleury went to play it, the puck came off the wall funny, hit his stick and bobbled out into the crease where Mike Knuble had an open net.
"The puck was just lying in the crease," Knuble said. "Those are the hard ones to put in because you can't believe it is really happening to you, so you just want to make sure that you jam it in."
The Flyers got a chance at a power play, but they were not very good and had trouble even getting out of their own end. And then the Penguins got their break.
Paul Bissonnette made a pass out front off the wall and the puck ticked off the skate of the Flyers' Andrew Alberts and went right to Tyler Kennedy, who had the open side in front of him to tie the score.
Crosby got the Penguins going at the start of the second period, stripping Richards of the puck along the wall in the defensive zone. Crosby flipped a pass across to the middle and Evgeni Malkin snapped the puck into the net above Marty Biron's stick to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead.
"The second goal there, it was a puck that I have to get out and I turned it over," Richards said. "They're very opportunistic and they capitalize on their chances maybe 70 to 80 percent of the time."
Pittsburgh kept pressing the issue and trapped Alberts and Randy Jones on the ice for an extended shift. When Alberts finally went to the bench, Pittsburgh caught the Flyers in the change and attacked.
Jordan Staal got the puck, and with a tired Jones backpedaling to his own net, Staal just skated in and backhanded it over Biron for the 3-1 lead.
After not winning much lately, the Penguins weren't about to let up, and they didn't. Grinding out a shift around the Flyers' net, Crosby tried a wraparound and missed. But Matt Cooke was there to give the Penguins a 4-1 lead.
In the third, Lupul scored on a rush on a pass from Scott Hartnell, but it was too little too late.
"We played a little bit loose in the defensive zone, and they have guys that are going to take advantage of that and notice what's happening on the ice," Knuble said.
"We weren't sharp defensively and you come out and get a fluky goal right away and that maybe kick-starts the team, maybe snaps you out of it, but we didn't really have a positive game overall, I don't think." *