April 25, 2026
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
Travis Konecny, Owen Tippett, and the Flyers want to have Xfinity Mobile Arena going crazy again for Game 4 on Saturday.
The Flyers have to play desperate Saturday night, because that's how the Penguins are going to show up with their season on the line.
"We talk about every game being different," head coach Rick Tocchet said within a quiet Xfinity Mobile Arena after his team's morning skate. "There's tons of pressure on us. There's been a ton of pressure on us the last two months, so we've been trying to deal with it the way we're trying to deal with it. You just gotta stay mentally in this game. You can't worry about tomorrow, [or] what ifs. You can't play that game."
All they have is the one in front of them later Saturday, which, once again for the Flyers, is a big one.
They're heading into Game 4 of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff Series, where they'll be back skating in front of an electric South Philadelphia crowd that nearly blew the roof off the place on Wednesday night as they crushed the rival Pittsburgh, 5-2, marking the franchise's first postseason home game in eight years.
And they'll be going into Saturday night holding a commanding 3-0 series lead over a veteran Penguins squad, where just one more Philadelphia win will send Pittsburgh home in a sweep, send the Flyers off to the next round, and will have the orange wave of nearly 20,000 – plus all those watching elsewhere – losing their minds all over again.
So, yeah, it's dire for the Pens, and just another day in the high-stakes pressure cooker that a young Flyers team has gotten used to living in ever since returning from the Olympic break.
But that doesn't mean there's any complacency. They want to put the Penguins away.
"I think we've done a pretty good job with that messaging," Tocchet continued. "But like I said, tonight's a desperate game for us, because we know they're gonna be desperate. That's the way you gotta look at it."
Dan Vladar is good to start Game 4.
Everyone was out on the ice for the Flyers' morning skate earlier Saturday.
Dan Vladar is good to go after Pittsburgh's Bryan Rust collided with him late into Wednesday night, which left the goaltender favoring his right arm. He'll be back in net to start Game 4, looking to close the series out.
Pittsburgh, on the other hand, is going for a shakeup. Penguins coach Dan Muse said they'll be going with backup netminder Arturs Silovs in place of Stuart Skinner for Saturday night.
Silovs played under Tocchet during the Vancouver Canuck's playoff run from two years ago, and performed well enough at the time to help push the powerhouse Edmonton Oilers to a Game 7 in the second round. It's been shaky ground for Silovs ever since, however.
During the regular season, Silovs started 38 games for Pittsburgh and posted an underwhelming 3.07 goals against average along with a .888 save percentage.
So if the Flyers really want to pour it on, now would be the time.
Evgeni Malkin and the Penguins have struggled mightily to generate offense on the Flyers.
They don't have to change much, if any, of what they've been doing, though. It's been working excellently for them through the series so far.
The Flyers have kept up the physicality, outhitting the Penguins 92-57 across Games 2 and 3, which seems to have really worn Pittsburgh down.
They've also shut Pittsburgh's power play down, holding a unit that was in the top 10 in the NHL during the season to a near-dormant 2-for-12 so far this series, and with those lone two goals they scored in Game 3 quickly being overtaken by two much bigger Philadelphia goals that effectively buried the Pens.
And then the Flyers have suffocated Pittsburgh at overall even-strength play. Their defensive system has clogged up the middle of the ice, and has managed to keep giving the Penguins continuous fits in trying, and failing, to get to the danger areas in front of the net.
They've been working with it all season. It really clicked down the stretch as they rapidly pieced together their rally into the postseason. But now? Evgeni Malkin has a couple of goals, sure, but otherwise, Rust and Karlsson have the Penguins' only other two, while longtime captain and star Sidney Crosby has zero and just a single assist.
"I think it's just a brand of hockey that allows us to be successful," defenseman Jamie Drysdale said after practice in Voorhees on Thursday. "I think that's something we've seen throughout the year, and I think we've kind of been consistently doing it over these last 20-30 games, to be honest.
"It's proven to give us a good chance to win each night. It's definitely an emphasis on the defense out."
And it has the Flyers with a good chance to go and get one more.
They just have to make sure they match the desperation.
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