April 27, 2026
Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images
Rick Tocchet needs to get the Flyers right again coming back to Philly for Game 6.
All it takes is one weird bounce for everything to change.
The Flyers climbed back.
Alex Bump, inserted into the Philadelphia lineup for his playoff debut, kept it himself and skated right around Parker Witherspoon to sneak in a shot to the shortside post. Then Travis Sanheim, after continous cycling of the puck, moved down the left wall and tossed a shot on, raising his arms as he watched the puck change direction from hittng Erik Karlsson to go sailing past Arturs Silovs.
The Flyers tied Game 5 late in the second period. They had the momentum.
But then Bump stepped in the way of a Kris Letang snap shot from the blue line to change its trajectory. The puck hit the glass behind the Flyers' net with a thud, and the bounce hit off the back of goaltender Dan Vladar's leg, who, totally unaware, slid back onto his goal line looking for it, only to realize too late that he had knocked the puck across it.
That crushed them.
The Flyers lost to the Penguins, 3-2, Monday night over in Pittsburgh. Their lead in their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series is down to 3-2, with Game 6 and another shot to finally, hopefully wrap this up coming back to Xfinity Mobile Arena on Wednesday night.
A WEIRD BOUNCE AND THE PENS RETAKE THE LEAD 😳
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 28, 2026
📺: Sportsnet pic.twitter.com/os8zYD8srx
That flukey bounce, that came with less than three minutes left in the second, didn't do the Flyers in on its own.
Elmer Soderblom's first-period goal was quickly in, where an ill-timed change and Rasmus Ristolainen getting knocked off the puck by Anthony Mantha for the setup in front, hurt them.
ELMER SODERBLOM STRIKES FOR THE PENS EARLY 🐧 pic.twitter.com/BbE7GtmXSF
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 27, 2026
So did a long stay in their own zone and a failed clear by Owen Tippett that allowed Connor Dewar to get free and step into a shot that zipped right by Vladar to the top corner.
Connor Dewar with a SNIPE for his second of the series 🎯 pic.twitter.com/4makscpxyt
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 28, 2026
And so did an entirely ineffective power play, which went 0-for-2 and didn't seem interested in doing much else other than passing back and forth from up high and hoping that the Penguins would suddenly gift them a lane to shoot through – spoiler alert: they didn't.
Yet even through all of that, the Flyers were still in it. They found a way to tie Monday night in Pittsburgh, 2-2.
Travis Sanheim buries his second of the series 🙌 pic.twitter.com/a8NrM5qjpK
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 28, 2026
Then that odd puck hit the glass and fell onto a confused Vladar's back. That crushed them.
Through the series' first three games, the Flyers looked a massive step ahead of the Penguins.
They were faster, meaner, younger, and they were skating with that distinct type of fearlessness that can sometimes carry a playoff newcomer a long way.
But that step hasn't been there since the Flyers' – and Philadelphia's – grand outburst in Game 3 at home last Wednesday.
They were flat in Game 4 on Saturday, and a bit too easily pushed away in battles after the puck.
Head coach Rick Tocchet, after practice Sunday in Voorhees, assessed it as his team getting away from their process.
"I think we just wanted to win the game, and forgot about the process," he said. "Wall work, getting to the net, good changes. I think we were a little average in all those things, and average hockey is not gonna win.
"I think we learned the fact that we gotta play desperate. We didn't play desperate. They did. We turn the page, and it's a new game."
Or so he said, because the Flyers played average again in Game 5, and surprise, they lost – despite a frantic push with an empty net to flurry Silovs with shots toward the end.
The Penguins forechecked harder, made their passes up the ice cleaner, and tested Vladar more, where it felt like every Pittsburgh shot pressing deeper into the game's back half was getting scarier than the last.
And yet still, the Flyers were in it.
Then Letang's shot changed its course off of Bump's stick to the back wall, and fell into the back of Vladar's leg to be pinballed across the goal line.
The light went off, and every Flyer on the ice looked around in bewilderment.
That crushed them.
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