No Sidney Crosby. No problem for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Despite missing their superstar center Tuesday night, the Penguins defeated the Flyers, 5-2, in their first home game with fans in about a year.
Kasperi Kapanen scored a pair of goals as the Penguins ended the Flyers’ three-game winning streak.
Crosby was placed on the league’s COVID-19 protocol list Tuesday and might miss games against the visiting Flyers Thursday and Saturday. It is not known if Crosby has contracted the coronavirus.
The Flyers notched wins recently against the New York Rangers, who were missing Artemi Panarin (personal reasons), and Buffalo when it was without the injured Jack Eichel for one game. They took advantage of teams missing stars in those games, but failed to capitalize Tuesday.
A crowd of 2,800 — the maximum allowed based on the 15% guidelines set by the state — was permitted to attend at PPG Paints Arena.
The Flyers got to within 3-2 when Joel Farabee scored his second goal of the night, this one on a rebound, with nine minutes left. Just 68 seconds later, defenseman Codi Ceci made it 4-2 by scoring from in close after being set up by former Flyer Mark Friedman.
The Penguins added an empty-net goal.
With the win, the Penguins tied the Flyers, who are fourth in the East Division, in points (25). The Flyers have two games in hand.
Kapanen and Farabee exchanged goals 67 seconds apart to create a 1-1 tie early in the second period.
Sean Couturier stole the puck in the neutral zone and worked a slick give-and-go that Farabee knocked into an open net to put the Flyers ahead, 1-0, with 17:28 left in the second. It was Farabee’s ninth goal — one more than he scored in the entire 2019-20 season — and Couturier’s assist gave him a career-high seven-game point streak.
But an errant Shayne Gostisbehere pass led to a Kapanen breakaway, and he put the puck between Carter Hart’s legs with 16:21 to go in the period. It ended the Flyers’ shutout streak at 160 minutes, 11 seconds.
Kapanen, whose father, Sami, played for the Flyers from 2003 to 2008, wasn’t done. He finished off a pretty passing play to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead with 11:19 remaining in the second.
About 1 1/2 minutes later, Hart made a diving save to prevent an all-alone Kapanen, lurking in front of the net, from a hat trick.
The Penguins kept swarming, and Bryan Rust got behind Gostisbehere and Ivan Provorov and scored on a rebound, pushing Pittsburgh’s lead to 3-1 with 9:15 left in the second. That gave the Pens three goals in a 7:06 span.
The Flyers had a huge territorial edge and 14-5 shots domination in a scoreless first period, but they failed to take advantage of two early Pittsburgh penalties. That left them 4 for 34 (11.8%) on the power play in their last eight-plus games.
Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry made key stops on Gostisbehere and James van Riemsdyk (rebound) on the Flyers’ first power play. In the period, Jarry made three stops on Nolan Patrick, who entered the night with just 12 shots all season.
With about nine minutes left in the opening period, a video of the Flyers left winger Oskar Lindblom, cancer survivor, was shown on the scoreboard and he received a standing ovation from Pittsburgh fans. Lindblom waved to the crowd. (Twenty-eight years ago to the day, Spectrum fans gave Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux a long standing ovation in his first game back after having 22 radiation treatments for Hodgkin lymphoma.)
Pittsburgh, which was outshot by a 42-27 margin, had a couple of scoring chances late in the first, but Hart stopped Evgeni Malkin from the right circle and later turned aside Sam Lafferty’s deflection from the doorstep.
It was the start of the first three-game, regular-season series against the same opponent (and in the same building) in the Flyers’ history.
The Flyers opened their season with a 6-3 win over the visiting Penguins on Jan. 13 as Farabee became the second player in franchise history to collect four points in an opener.
Two nights later, Travis Konecny’s first career hat trick keyed a 5-2 win over the Penguins at the Wells Fargo Center. Konecny returned from a five-game COVID protocol absence Tuesday.
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