Flyers still alive with Game Five win over Caps
ByReuters
Published 23/04/2016 at 02:34 GMT
April 22 (The Sports Xchange) - Michal Neuvirth made a playoff career-high 44 saves and Ryan White scored a second-period goal that deflected off the skate of a defenseman as the Philadelphia Flyers stayed alive in their first-round series against the Washington Capitals with a 2-0 victory Friday.
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Image credit: Eurosport
Despite being outshot 44-11, the Flyers closed the margin in the best-of-7 series to 3-2 with Game 6 on Sunday in Philadelphia. It was the Flyers second straight win after falling behind in the series 3-0.
Neuvirth had one of the most outstanding playoff performances in recent memory, holding the fort with the Capitals outshooting the Flyers 30-5 over the last 40 minutes before Chris Vandevelde put the icing on the victory with an empty-net goal with 30.8 seconds left.
In the waning seconds of a second-period power play, Flyers center Sam Gagner fired a shot from the blue line that got caught in a nest of bodies in front of the net. White corralled the puck and attempted to pass, and his effort ricocheted right off the skate of Washington's Taylor Chorney into the open net to make it 1-0 Philadelphia.
The Flyers then leaned heavily on Neuvirth, who didn't play in the first three games of the series, but has been impressive in the last two, shutting down the Capitals' explosive offense while facing a flurry of shots.
Washington goalie Braden Holtby took the loss while making just nine saves on the night as the Capitals lost consecutive games in regulation for the first time this season.
After a lackluster start in Game 3, the Capitals said they wanted to be the aggressors early on, and they did just that 10 seconds into the game when forward T.J. Oshie dropped his gloves and squared off with Philadelphia center Brayden Schenn, whom Washington felt delivered several dirty hits in the prior contest.
With that out of the way, Washington spent most of the first period killing penalties with relative ease, helped greatly by the Flyers' struggling power-play unit, which went 0-for-6 on the night and is now 1-for-21 in the series.
But the Capitals could not figure out Neuvirth, their former teammate, and dropped to 1-9 in their last 10 elimination games.
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