No sweep for Flyers as rally falls short, series shifts back to Pittsburgh

The Flyers are headed back to Pittsburgh.

They were unable to sweep the Penguins in this best-of-seven first-round playoff matchup as they suffered a 4-2 loss Saturday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

Travis Konecny and Denver Barkey provided the Flyers’ goals.

Konecny drew the Flyers to within 3-2 in the third period on a snap shot from the circle. Christian Dvorak and Travis Sanheim made aggressive plays to set it up.

Barkey cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 2-1 in the second period off a feed from Trevor Zegras.

But the Penguins never relinquished their advantage after striking first.

“That’s a good hockey team over there,” Rick Tocchet said. “It’s hard to win every game. We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board.”

Tocchet’s club had its series lead trimmed to 3-1. In the days leading up to Game 4, the Flyers’ head coach stressed the challenge of trying to eliminate a team like Pittsburgh.

“They’ve been down before,” Tocchet said Thursday. “It’s a group that you’re going to have to stick a fork in them. I’m sure they’re reading clippings of teams that have come back from 3-0. I’d be doing the same thing. It can happen.”

The last time the Flyers swept a playoff series was 1995, when they took out the Rangers in the second round.

Tocchet’s club won Games 1 and 2 at PPG Paints Arena. It’ll try to win one more there with Game 5 next.

“If somebody told you guys before the series we were going to be up 3-1 after four games, you guys wouldn’t believe us,” Dan Vladar said. “We are good. Nothing’s changing for us, still being positive in here. They are a really good team. It’s not easy to win four in a row against a team like that. We are fine here.”

• Despite an injury scare in the third period of Game 3, Vladar was good to go for Saturday night.

The 28-year-old denied 17 of 20 shots.

He had a rare blemish 1:03 minutes into the second period when he turned the puck over behind his net. Rickard Rakell forced Vladar into the mistake and scored a second later with an impressive effort. That put the Flyers in a 2-0 hole.

“I thought guys played a really good game in front of me,” Vladar said. “The first two goals weren’t great from my end. If I didn’t let those two happen, we would have won, 2-1.”

Vladar had given up just four goals over the first three games of the series. He entered Game 4 with 70 saves on 74 shots.

Arturs Silovs was in Pittsburgh’s net for his first start of the series. The 25-year-old stopped 28 of the Flyers’ 30 shots.

The Flyers cracked him with 4:20 minutes left in the second period when Zegras found his roommate Barkey. The goal gave the building life.

“I thought some guys weren’t moving their feet, it seemed like a few guys were sluggish tonight,” Tocchet said. “We’re going to have to figure that out, get some energy there. Because I thought the first half, we were a little bit sluggish, but then we started to come.”

The Flyers went 0 for 3 on their power play. They pulled Vladar with around 1:50 minutes left, but couldn’t net the equalizer. The Penguins finished things off with an empty-netter from Connor Dewar.

“I don’t think anyone expected us to be up 3-0 in the series,” Sanheim said. “A 3-1 series lead, we’ll take it and move on and get ready for Monday.”

• Tocchet’s club has really wanted to keep this series at 5-on-5 as much as possible.

The Flyers won Game 2 despite giving Pittsburgh five power plays. They won Game 3 despite surrendering two power play goals. But they allowed another power play goal in Game 4 and one at 4-on-4. They don’t want the series to turn into a special teams battle.

“I think we’ve just got to make sure we play a better 60 minutes,” Dvorak said. “It took a little bit to get going tonight. We like our 5-on-5 game for the most part. If we play 5-on-5 for 60 minutes, we increase our odds.”

• After being held to no goals and one assist over the first three games, Sidney Crosby opened the scoring Saturday night.

On a first-period power play, the future Hall of Fame center won a faceoff and then scored five seconds later with a quick release. Vladar got a piece of the shot with his glove, but it still snuck past him.

In the third period, Crosby showed his savviness to win a puck battle and set up Kris Letang’s 3-1 goal.

“I’m kicking myself on Letang’s goal, the 4-on-4, I just lost a wall battle,” Konecny said. “It was too bad because then we got one right back, so it kind of feels like we could have tied the game up if I didn’t make that mistake. We’ll move on from it.”

This was No. 87’s best game of the series. The ultimate Flyers killer had been pretty quiet up until now.

But Crosby owns 139 points (60 goals, 79 assists) in 93 career regular-season games against the Flyers. And in the playoffs, he has put up 39 points (16 goals, 23 assists) in 27 career meetings with the Flyers.

• The series picks back up Monday at PPG Paints Arena with Game 5 (7 p.m. ET/NBCSP).

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