PHILADELPHIA — It took three tries, but the Philadelphia Flyers landed the knockout blow on the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series on Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, winning 1-0 thanks to a deciding goal in overtime by Cam York.

The Flyers, who won the first three games of the series before dropping Games 4 and 5, will now face the Carolina Hurricanes, who finished with the most points in the Eastern Conference in the regular season (113). It’s the Flyers’ first appearance in the second round since 2020, and just their second in the last 14 years.

The Flyers had a burst of early energy in the first period in front of their capacity crowd, including chances from a hard-charging Owen Tippett and Luke Glendening in the slot on a feed from Sean Couturier, but the Penguins came out of it unscathed.

Pittsburgh started to take control in the second period, easily moving the puck up the ice and leading to extended time in its offensive zone. The Penguins had one particularly lengthy shift about four minutes into the frame, forcing Tippett to ice the puck. A strange delay followed, as the referees and the Flyers bench argued over who should be on the ice — allowing some tired Flyers players some extra time to rest before the next faceoff.

Each team had its chances in the third period. Matvei Michkov’s well-placed wrist shot off the rush was gloved by Penguins goaltender Artūrs Šilovs midway through the frame, and Šilovs denied an open Noah Cates in the circle with about seven minutes remaining. Vladar made 13 saves in the third period, including on Bryan Rust’s two attempts from in tight after the Penguins winger dangerously cut to the net.

Šilovs gives Penguins a chance

First-year Penguins coach Dan Muse has made some curious decisions with his lineup this spring, but no one can question the move to go with Šilovs after Game 3.

The 25-year-old goaltender has a history of shining under the brightest spotlights, and he certainly did his part in Game 6.

The Flyers were not substantially better than the Penguins in this contest, but for most of the night, it was Philadelphia that enjoyed the majority of the scoring chances.

And for most of the evening, Šilovs stood on his head, ultimately stopping 31 of 32 shots.

It was an up-and-down regular season for Šilovs, but he has an undeniably strong postseason and international history. He’s not afraid of the big moments.

Vladar keeps Flyers afloat in the third

While Šilovs probably had the more difficult of the stops throughout the game, Vladar was just as outstanding on the other end, particularly in the third period. He tracked several shots through traffic as the Penguins got bodies to the blue paint, and with about 8:30 to go, Vladar made back-to-back stops on Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin. His best stop came with 3:30 to go, when Rust drove the net through a confused Flyers defense but ran into Vladar’s pad when he tried to push it into what looked like an open net.

While Vladar has been strong throughout the series, he gave the puck away, which led to the game-winning goal in Game 4, and then saw a strange ricochet off the end boards sneak between his pads in Game 5. There were no such errors in Game 6.

Michkov returns, Hathaway comes out

After sitting out Game 5, Michkov made his return to the lineup as the right wing with Cates and Alex Bump. He took his position on the right flank for the second power-play unit, too.

Michkov made some decent passes in the offensive zone in the first period and nearly broke the scoreless tie in the second period on a partial breakaway, but his attempt was turned aside with 4:35 to go. Later on the same shift, after Bump got the puck to the front of the net, Michkov was nearly able to jam the loose puck through, but Šilovs held the line. Conversely, he was also pressured into some dangerous turnovers, including midway through the first when Evgeni Malkin took the puck from him in the neutral zone and raced ahead on a two-on-one before taking a shot that Vladar kicked away.

To make room for Michkov, Garnet Hathaway came out as a healthy scratch. Tyson Foerster, who has struggled in the series, was bumped down to the fourth line, while rookie Porter Martone skated with Trevor Zegras and Tippett on a new-look top line. That allowed Travis Konecny to move back to the right wing, with center Christian Dvorak and left wing Denver Barkey.

‘Shoot!’

The Penguins, historically speaking, are a team that doesn’t shoot all that often because of their high skill level. They’d rather make the perfect play. Tommy Novak took that strategy to the extreme early in the third period.
At that point in the game, the Penguins had been credited with only two high-danger chances at five on five play, according to Natural Stat Trick.

And yet, early in the third period, a Sam Girard shot from the left wing wall was deflected and eventually squirted to Novak, who was standing in front of the net with a half-wide-open cage staring him in the eye.

For reasons that defy imagination, Novak didn’t shoot. He could have shot at Vladar’s stick side, which was open. He also could have shifted the puck to his backhand. Instead, he held the puck for a couple of moments before throwing a pass back across the slot that had absolutely no chance of working.

In a game that had so few scoring chances, he didn’t help the cause with that decision.