Scott Hartnell beats down Pittsburgh Penguins to end 11-game run as Philadelphia Flyers win 3-2 in OT
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia matchups are always intense and their Sunday night meeting was not any less as the Flyers fought and gave it everything they had to end Penguins 11-game winning streak, 3-2, in an overtime extension at the sold-out Wells Fargo
Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Penguins’ captain, Sidney Crosby, was yearning for his first goal in three matchups ever since he has been back playing primetime hockey. The young superstar went out in early December, but is hopefully now back in full force.
"I just want to make sure that I am getting better and feeling better each game," Crosby said. "I think as a group we played really well here in the last few. Most of the time we've done some really good things. We just want to keep building off that."
Craig Adams gave Penguins their first of the night with less than seven minutes remaining in the opener on a setup by Kris Letang and Pascal Dupuis.
Evgeni Malkin followed it up with his impressive 41st of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, giving Letang his second assist of the night on a wrap around past Philadelphia goalie, Ilya Bryzgalov.
Pittsburgh was surprisingly up by 2-0 entering the third and final period of regulation but Philadelphia had the plan to make a comeback as Kimmo Timonen fired off their first on the power play which carried over from round two.
Scott Hartnell, after a few missed chances, got the equaliser for Philadelphia at 4:47 and than the game-winner with less than second to go in the overtime decider.
"I don't know if we were trying to be too fancy, but we wore them down at the end," Hartnell said. "Good things happen when you put the puck to the net and that happened tonight."
"It was a playoff game," Hartnell added. "Odds are that we are going to end up with these guys in the first round.”
Philadelphia has the next at home against Florida Panthers on Tuesday, a matchup which should not be as difficult seeing how they performed against Penguins.
Pittsburgh should not be underestimated and will most likely bounce back against Winnipeg Jets on the same day.
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