PITTSBURGH \u2014 The ancient Greeks were the first to come up with what is now considered the clich\u00e9 of not resting on one\u2019s laurels.<\/p>\n
However trite it might sound, that was the message the Flyers tried to embrace for Sunday\u2019s practice at PPG Paints Arena as they prepared for Monday night\u2019s Game 2 against the Penguins.<\/p>\n
Winning Game 1 of the best-of-seven series on Saturday night, 3-2, was nice but there\u2019s no reason to take the foot off the gas pedal. Momentum can change in a heartbeat, which is why the Flyers would like to match the Penguins\u2019 physical approach once again.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh dished out 41 official hits in that first game but the Flyers virtually matched that with 40 of their own.\u201c<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t get too comfortable out there because you know they\u2019re going to be better tomorrow than they were last game,\u201d defenseman Cam York said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be prepared for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will probably be even more intense. But our last 20 games, we\u2019ve been playing playoff games, so I feel like we\u2019re prepared for that, we\u2019re used to it. I thought we had a good gameplan going into the game and I thought we executed it really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Rick Tocchet kept the practice short, right around 30 minutes. They did a few technical drills but the main idea was to keep the legs loose and the thought process clear for Game 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the game it was almost like, \u2018All right, good game but we have 36 hours to get ready because we know the other team is going to come out harder,\u2019 \u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThat\u2019s a veteran approach and I saw that from the young guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flyers held the Penguins to just 17 shots. Don\u2019t think for a moment the Pittsburgh crew isn\u2019t going over ways to increase that total by a lot. Ditto the hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a couple things we have to tweak,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of video, a lot of teaching. The tweaks will happen tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
How can the Flyers improve on their own game?<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I thought we had the opportunity to score more goals,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a criticism. I loved our chances but I just don\u2019t think we converted them. We had two-on-ones, a couple breakaways.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we could have had more offense if we just bear down a little bit. That\u2019s the only criticism. The play without the puck was excellent. There are just times where we really have to convert.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Game 1 was another strong one for the Rasmus Ristolainen-Travis Sanheim top defense pairing.<\/p>\n
Sanheim had a go-ahead goal, and Ristolainen was awarded an assist on that goal, plus on Sunday the NHL gave him credit for an additional assist on Porter Martone\u2019s first playoff goal which turned out to be the game-winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey eat up a lot of minutes,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThere have been some situations where the last six weeks where the penalty kill, defending top lines. . .there\u2019s been times when they haven\u2019t had a chance to breathe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s when you know you have two big defensemen who can handle the workload. We\u2019ve been running them pretty hard for 23, 24 minutes. It looks like they thrive on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Defenseman Jamie Drysdale\u2019s game has steadily improved throughout the season. He added to that portfolio by scoring the first goal of this series on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a fairly quiet guy but I\u2019ve seen moments where he\u2019s stood up and said something loud,\u201d Tocchet said. \u201cThat, to me, is forming into a leader. It\u2019s when you\u2019re comfortable telling your teammates something, good or bad. I\u2019ve seen him grow this year in the leadership role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drysdale looks more comfortable taking on more responsibility. He\u2019s gotten over whatever nerves he might have had on the way up through the ranks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think kind of at each level you have moments like that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of natural to feel those nerves and whatnot. You just take a deep breath and take it for what it is. Once the puck drops, you can kind of dial in and block out the noise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 The ancient Greeks were the first to come up with what is now considered the clich\u00e9…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-556372","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","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116434014252509358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556372","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=556372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}