The first period was extremely exciting. The Penguins again scored first, but the Flyers quickly responded with another short handed goal from Max Talbot. Danny Briere then scored the next two goals of the game to give the Flyers a 3-1 lead. The first period ended with the Flyers leading 4-2.
In addition to a lot of goals being scored in the first, both teams were extremely physical and there were a lot of extra curricular activities and scrums around the net. The most prominent scrum between the two teams came when Bryz covered the puck up, and Susie Crosby proceeded to chop at the covered up puck. From there a whole series of fights erupted and Kimmo Timonen and Kris Letang were both given game misconducts.
In the second period, the game seemed to calm down a little in terms of fights. But in terms of goal scoring, the second period saw a lot of goals from both teams once again. The Penguins scored mid way through the period to make it a 4-3 game. With about 6 minutes left in the period, the Flyers were awarded a power play. On the man advantage, Jagr sent a beautiful cross ice pass through the defense to Matt Read who one timed it home. Roughly a minute later Jordan Staal scored to cut the lead back to 1. Toward the end of the period with time running out on their power play, Braydon Coburn passed it ahead to Wayne Simmonds who put one past Fleury to make it a 6-4 game.
In the third, Marc-Adre Fleury was replaced by backup goalie Brent Johnson. The Flyers made quick work against Johnson. Jagr made another beautiful pass, this time to Giroux who scored to give the Flyers a 7-4 advantage. The game eventually ended in a 8-4 Flyers victory.
Overall a huge win for the Flyers who now hold a commanding 3 games to none advantage in the series. The Flyers again fell behind early but were able to fight back. The goal scoring for the Flyers has been amazing so far in this series and it continued today. Not only were the able to score, but they were able to score timely goals today as well.
Bryzgalov gave up 4 goals in the game but he didn't look as good as he did in prior games. But credit is still due to Bryz who ultimately kept the Flyers in the game and didn't give up too many easy goals.
Briere once again had another big game. He notched 2 goals and did a great job of properly setting up and getting in good position to score on offense. Matt Read was the young star of the game. Read was relatively quiet in the first two games of the series, but he came through with 2 goals today. Simmonds, Giroux, scored and Talbot scored twice against his former team.
One thing is extremely obvious after today's game: the Flyers want it more. They are skating faster, hitting harder, and ultimately out working the Penguins. It always seems like just when the Penguins think that they are back in the game, the Flyers always quickly respond with a timely goal.
Through out the entire game, the Penguins let their frustrations and anger get the better of them and took it out with cheap shots on the Flyers. Brayden Schenn and Sean Couterier were both victims to cheap shots. Toward the end of the game, the Penguins also took some shots at Giroux which resulted in another big scrum in the middle of both benches.
Both teams will get two well deserved days off as Game 4 is set for Wednesday night. The Flyers will go for the knock out punch on Wednesday as they attempt to end it in Philly instead of traveling back to Pittsburgh.
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