Pittsburgh Penguins hoping for rebound against Philadelphia Flyers in Game 3 -NHL Playoffs
Pittsburgh definitely needs a miracle now as they gave up the first two matchups of the 2012 National Hockey League (NHL) Eastern Conference playoff quarterfinals at home to Philadelphia.
Now as the series heads to Pennsylvania where the Flyers will have the home-ice advantage, Penguins will need to work extra hard to save themselves from a whitewash as the next two could be what Philadelphia needs to sweep the series.
It would certainly be disappointing for Pittsburgh to go down 4-0 and be eliminated from the playoffs without putting up a fight as they remained to be one of the best teams in the league, especially having their star players back on the line-up.
Missing last year’s postseason, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are both back but the question still remains to be answered. Will they win the next two to get back into the series?
Losing the first in overtime, 4-3, was not as bad of a loss, but the next by a three goal margin and Flyers dominated, 8-5, has certainly put Pittsburgh in an awkward position.
Despite the losses, Pittsburgh Penguins head coach, Dan Bylsma, is still confident his team will manage to bounce back.
"You can say that losing 4-3 is a 4-3 loss no matter how it goes down," Bylsma said. "In an overtime game it's painful for anybody who's losing 4-3. We know several other teams that had that happen to them in Game 1. I think we understand we had leads and
3-0 leads and two-goal leads, and they were able to come back. That's something we talked about before the series started. We knew that was going to be the case for this Flyer team. We knew that they were going to play and I don't think there has been a lot
of surprises in that regard.”
Without a doubt, losing two straight has had a negative effect on the Penguins team and can be said to have killed off some of their hopes, but this is not the first time such a loss has come around. Many teams have managed to rebound but if game three goes
down in Philadelphia’s favour, it will be extremely difficult for Penguins to come back.
Game three of the series is set to take place at the Wells Fargo Center between Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, April 15, 3:00 PM ET.
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