{"id":555805,"date":"2026-04-19T06:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555805\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:36:18","slug":"penguins-out-of-their-element-in-physical-game-1-loss-to-flyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555805\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins out of their element in physical Game 1 loss to Flyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby<\/a> went to the box twice. He was called for roughing Jamie Drysdale<\/a> at 11:16 of the first period and for slashing Travis Sanheim<\/a> at 18:51 of the third.<\/p>\n

“That’s going to be part of a series,\u201d Crosby said. \u201cI think we’ve got to stay out of it a little bit more and trust that when they do it and try to start it up, that they’re going to get penalized for it. But that’s more something I think they’re looking to do. We’ve got to stay out of it and trust they’ll be undisciplined.”<\/p>\n

Instead, the Penguins were out of sorts. Goalie Stuart Skinner tried to help them breathe.<\/p>\n

Christian Dvorak<\/a> seemed to score at 8:19 of the first period, but had a goal waved off immediately after crashing into Skinner. Owen Tippett<\/a>\u00a0was denied by Skinner\u2019s pad on a breakaway at 8:20 of the second.<\/p>\n

It was never going to last, though.\u00a0Drysdale solved Skinner at 9:19 to put the Flyers in front 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to help him, for sure,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cAgain, we give them so many chances. He played really good. But it’s a tough loss. The crowd, it’s amazing tonight. But it’s not over. We need to understand how the playoffs are important, every game is important. Physical game. We just need to be ready and play our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malkin did his part. He scored a tying goal, his first in the playoffs since May 13, 2022, at 15:51 of the second and had an assist on Bryan Rust<\/a>‘s goal that cut the deficit to 3-2 at 18:59 of the third after\u00a0Sanheim and Porter Martone<\/a>\u00a0scored for the Flyers earlier in the period.<\/p>\n

But Saturday was still difficult. It was the Penguins\u2019 return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs after missing the past three seasons. Maybe that was part of the problem.<\/p>\n

“I mean, we played good all year long,\u201d Malkin said. \u201cWe know how we play and we just, like, maybe nervous too much or we want (it) too much. We just not thinking a little bit, I think. Everybody wants to play good. I understand. But again, we have a couple bad turnovers.”<\/p>\n

But, as Malkin said, it’s not over. Game 2 will be here on Monday (7 p.m. ET; SN-PIT, NBCSP, ESPN, TVAS2, SN360). With it comes a chance for the Penguins to find themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, it’s just the first game,”\u00a0Malkin said. “We understand, we not play (in) three years. Everybody, like, a little bit nervous, but we have a chance, for sure. We need to just play simple and a little bit better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby went to the box twice. He was called for roughing Jamie Drysdale at 11:16…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205],"class_list":{"0":"post-555805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116429991661255693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}