Apr 14, 2018 5 min read

Maybe 4-3 would have been better than 7-0.

It was interesting to hear fans and talk show hosts declaring the Philadelphia Flyers dead Thursday. The Penguins couldn’t have played any better and the Flyers couldn’t have played any worse Wednesday night, so, that was to be expected.

But what also should have been expected was a much better game from the Flyers in Game 2. There are some really good players on that team and they probably couldn’t wait for the puck to drop Friday night to prove that they’re not as bad as they looked in Game 1.

The Penguins’ only incentive was to not get big heads and get out of Pittsburgh with a 2-0 series lead. That should have been incentive enough but there was no way they were going to match the Flyers’ emotional level Friday night.

The Flyers were the more desperate team, and sometimes in hockey that’s all you need to win. Patric Hornqvist hitting two posts and Sidney Crosby hitting a crossbar and missing a wide-open net from five feet away didn’t help, but the Penguins had played well enough in Game 1 that one goal would have been enough.

The Flyers still would have had the Big D on their bench if they had lost Game 1, 4-3, and the Penguins would have had to match it, but being totally humiliated cranked them just a little more.

Their goalie, Brian Elliot, stopped 97 percent of the shots he faced in Game 2 after stopping 73 percent in Game 1. That seemed to make a big difference. He was totally humiliated Wednesday night and not benching him turned out be a pretty good idea.

Matt Murray stopped 100 percent of the Flyers’ shots Wednesday night and 79 percent Friday night, which puts him below 90 percent for the series.

He probably has to save at least 80 percent of the Flyers shots today in Game 3 if the Penguins are going to win.

If the Penguins hit a lot of posts again and Elliot stops 97 percent of the Penguins’ shots, then the Flyers will probably be up 2-1 tonight. And if that happens, count on mass panic spreading through Western Pennsylvania. The Penguins will be doomed. You would think people in Western Pa. would have learned how a seven-game series works by now.

What happened Friday will have nothing to do with what happens today except for the desperation factor, and that you can predict with almost 100 percent accuracy.

The team that’s ahead in the series is going to have a hard time matching the compete level of the team that is down. And, though it’s even, guess which team is now just a little bit more desperate? That would be the Penguins. Being up 2-1 in the series after losing 7-0 would be a big confidence-builder for the Flyers, who get the next game in Philadelphia.

The guy who came up with the idea of playing a seven-game series knew what he was doing. Enjoy the ride.

• Murray deserved every bit of the praise he received for getting his third-straight postseason shutout in Game 1, but, thanks to the Penguins’ puck possession and goal onslaught, he only faced 24 shots. Friday night, he stopped only 15 out of 19 shots.

In his last 10 games, including the first two games of this series, Murray has given up four goals five times and three goals three times. His goals-against average is 3.10 with an .899 save percentage. Those statistics can be misleading and really require having seen the games to determine how much of it is the goaltender and how much of it is the guys playing in front of him.

This Penguins team has been giving up a lot more chances than the two Stanley Cup-winning teams. The Flyers have players who can finish. Murray might have to be better this time than he was last spring when he gave up less than two goals a game.

• How many more no-name or almost no-name quarterbacks are going to get jobs in the NFL before the media stops using them to point out the terrible injustice being suffered by poor Colin Kaepernick? Pro Football Weekly reported last week that the Seattle Seahawks had considered giving Kaepernick a shot until he said he couldn’t promise he wasn’t going to kneel the next time he hears the Star-Spangled Banner.

The Seahawks signed a guy you’ve never heard of. I think his name is Joe Bagodonuts.

Is it really that hard for the social-justice warriors to figure out that it has nothing to do with Kaepernick’s talent and it has nothing to do with his cause or the color of his skin?

He made himself so radioactive that his talent level is irrelevant.

Deadspin, when reporting that the Seahawks had passed on Kapernick, referred to the disregard of his civil rights. Teams have nothing to do with civil rights and they don’t care about them.

The government can’t penalize you for not standing for the National Anthem but your employer sure can fire you.

And it’s interesting that Kaepernick’s decision to wear socks to practice that had pictures of pigs dressed as cops on them is almost never mentioned anymore.

NFL teams depend on the police for security. The cops are their friends. Kaepernick took a stand. It doesn’t matter if his stand was justified or courageous. He took it at the wrong place and at the wrong time. If he never gets another job in the NFL, then he’ll have nobody to blame but himself.