Pittsburgh Penguins

Who: Flyers (23-10-9) vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (20-19-4) When: 7 o'clock Where: Wachovia Center TV: Comcast SportsNet Radio: WIP (610-AM) Ticket availability: As of yesterday, 300 tickets remained.  

There are great plays and then there are plays that announce greatness. Claude Giroux's premeditated playoff killing of the Pittsburgh Penguins was the latter. "When the best player in the world comes up to you and says, 'I don't know who you're planning on starting, but I want that first shift,' that says everything you need to know about Claude Giroux right there," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Sunday's 5-1 rout of the Penguins. "About 10 seconds before they dropped the puck, he came over and told me, 'Watch the first shift,' " Danny Briere said.

Sidney Crosby was making no excuses. On a day that his Pittsburgh Penguins team needed him to recapture his Stanley Cup winning past, Crosby's lack of production drew notice. The Flyers closed out their first-round series with the Penguins with Sunday's 5-1 win at the Wells Fargo Center, winning this sometimes crazy series 4 games to 2. On the surface, Crosby's statistics looked solid, three goals and five assists for eight points in the six games. Yet Crosby didn't register a point in the final two games.

Ed Barkowitz EASTERN CONFERENCE: EASTERN CONFERENCE: Montreal Canadiens vs. Flyers - Flyers in 7. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. New York Rangers - Penguins in 6. WESTERN CONFERENCE: Colorado Avalanche vs. Detroit Red Wings - Red Wings in 7. Dallas Stars vs. San Jose Sharks - Sharks in 5.   Sam Donnellon EASTERN CONFERENCE: EASTERN CONFERENCE: Montreal Canadiens vs. Flyers - Flyers in 7. ...

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Boston are the finalists to host the 2013 and 2014 Frozen Four hockey tournament, College Hockey News reported. The site in Philadelphia would be the Wachovia Center. The Frozen Four consists of the NCAA ice hockey semifinals and the championship game. St. Louis, which will host the NCAA West Regional in 2011, last hosted the Frozen Four in 2007, while Boston last hosted in 2004. Philadelphia, which has been in the mix before, and Pittsburgh have never hosted the event.

PITTSBURGH - As a primer to the Pennsylvania Cold War Series, the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins cleaned up some business Saturday afternoon as they played the (sleepy) final game of the regular season. It was a meaningless matchup in some respects, but the Penguins cleared a psychological hurdle, defeating the Flyers for the first time at the Consol Energy Center since the arena opened two seasons ago. Evgeni Malkin, the league's likely MVP, became the ninth player in Pittsburgh's history to reach the 50-goal mark as the Penguins outlasted the Flyers, 4-2, in a game that lacked the intensity that will be on display in the playoffs.

There are great plays and then there are plays that announce greatness. Claude Giroux's premeditated playoff killing of the Pittsburgh Penguins was the latter. "When the best player in the world comes up to you and says, 'I don't know who you're planning on starting, but I want that first shift,' that says everything you need to know about Claude Giroux right there," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Sunday's 5-1 rout of the Penguins in their NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.

Mario Lemieux said yesterday he has an excellent chance of becoming president and co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the next few months. "This week is crucial," Lemieux said at his official induction into the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's Hall of Fame. "The group I lead has put together the $50 million needed to save the Penguins. We have been working on a solid re-establishment project for nearly six months. " Lemieux, who later left for meetings in Pennsylvania today and tomorrow, said his group will present its business plan Thursday to a bankruptcy court hearing.

Steve Sullivan scored the tying goal in the third period, and James Neal and Evgeni Malkin connected in the first two rounds of a shootout to lift the host Pittsburgh Penguins to their eighth straight victory, 2-1 over the Florida Panthers on Friday night. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28 shots and was perfect in the shootout for his 36th victory of the season, putting him one behind Nashville's Pekka Rinne for the NHL lead.   Crosby update Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby said he's been free of concussion-like symptoms since being cleared for contact earlier this week but remains in no rush to suit up for a game for the first time in more than three months.

Losing a couple of playoff games isn't all that mysterious. It happens. Even to teams on their way to a championship, it happens. The mystery is how the Flyers lost their personality in this second-round series against New Jersey. There has been little sign of the swagger and energy that carried the Flyers past the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round. In falling behind two games to one to the Devils, the Flyers have looked flat instead of on edge, lifeless instead of lively, overwhelmed instead of overwhelming.

The Flyers' stars aren't shining. The Devils' stars are. That's one of the many reasons New Jersey has a two-games-to-one lead over the Flyers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The upstart Flyers seemed destined for a spot in the conference finals after pushing aside the Team That Was Supposed to Win the Stanley Cup, the Pittsburgh Penguins, while the aging Devils had to huff and puff in their quarterfinal series to slip past a Florida team that had more losses than wins in the regular season.

It may not be as entertaining as the six-game shootout with the Pittsburgh Penguins. In fact, compared to that wild series, the Flyers-Devils conference semifinal, which starts Sunday afternoon at the Wells Fargo Center, might seem almost boring. But not to the players. "It's going to be fun to play these guys," winger Scott Hartnell said after Friday's practice in Voorhees. "It's easy to hate Pittsburgh, but the Devils are right there. " The sixth-seeded Devils had five players with 20-plus goals this season, but they primarily win because of their defense and their ageless goaltender, Marty Brodeur, who isn't as dominating but is still effective after all these years.

Sidney Crosby was making no excuses. On a day that his Pittsburgh Penguins team needed him to recapture his Stanley Cup-winning past, Crosby's lack of production drew notice. The Flyers closed out their first-round series with the Penguins with Sunday's 5-1 win at the Wells Fargo Center, winning this sometimes crazy matchup four games to two. On the surface, Crosby's statistics looked solid - three goals and five assists for eight points in the six games. Yet Crosby didn't register a point in the final two games.

There are great plays and then there are plays that announce greatness. Claude Giroux's premeditated playoff killing of the Pittsburgh Penguins was the latter. "When the best player in the world comes up to you and says, 'I don't know who you're planning on starting, but I want that first shift,' that says everything you need to know about Claude Giroux right there," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Sunday's 5-1 rout of the Penguins in their NHL Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.

The Flyers made things so much harder on themselves by making all of this look so darn easy. Going into this first-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, expectations for the Flyers were manageable. They were a young team beset by devastating injuries, a team that was consistent only in its perplexing inconsistency. The Penguins were talented and experienced and surging with the return of captain Sidney Crosby. That's why most national experts picked the Penguins to win this series and why even the most partisan Flyers fans figured it would take a bloody seven-game torture test for the Orange and Black to advance.

ABOUT 10 SECONDS before the puck dropped on Sunday afternoon, shortly after "my home sweet home" simultaneously slipped from the mouths of Kate Smith and Lauren Hart, Claude Giroux circled by Danny Briere at the Flyers' bench. "He came over to me and said, 'Watch the first shift,' " Briere said. In one 32-second burst, Giroux quelled the fears of a quiet, on-edge, capacity crowd at the Wells Fargo Center with a first shift out of a scene in the cult-classic flick "Slap Shot.

When this wacky series started, the Stanley Cup favorites, the Pittsburgh Penguins, did the unthinkable - blowing multiple-goal leads at home as they lost Games 1 and 2. Now the Flyers have a chance to make the Penguins pay for their grievous beginning. On Sunday, at high noon, the Flyers will try to end Pittsburgh's season at the Wells Fargo Center. It won't be easy. After three straight losses, the March of the Penguins is in full throttle. Pittsburgh has won two straight and, with goalie Marc-Andre Fleury carrying a wave of momentum into Game 6, the Flyers have a major challenge.

There are great plays and then there are plays that announce greatness. Claude Giroux's premeditated playoff killing of the Pittsburgh Penguins was the latter. "When the best player in the world comes up to you and says, 'I don't know who you're planning on starting, but I want that first shift,' that says everything you need to know about Claude Giroux right there," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Sunday's 5-1 rout of the Penguins. "About 10 seconds before they dropped the puck, he came over and told me, 'Watch the first shift,' " Danny Briere said.

Sidney Crosby was making no excuses. On a day that his Pittsburgh Penguins team needed him to recapture his Stanley Cup winning past, Crosby's lack of production drew notice. The Flyers closed out their first-round series with the Penguins with Sunday's 5-1 win at the Wells Fargo Center, winning this sometimes crazy series 4 games to 2. On the surface, Crosby's statistics looked solid, three goals and five assists for eight points in the six games. Yet Crosby didn't register a point in the final two games.