Pittsburgh Penguins vs Philadelphia Flyers (Game 4): Preview & Prediction

Up 2-1 in the best-of-seven series, the two-time defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins can come one step closer to sending their Pennsylvania rivals home for the summer when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Arena tonight (7:00 PM ET).

After outscoring the Flyers 13-6 through the first three games, the Penguins opened as -140 road favorites, despite posting a sub-.500 road record in the regular season. The over/under opened at 6.0 with the over as a slight favorite thanks to some highly suspect defense and goaltending from both teams to date.

Opening Odds

Special teams were the deciding factor in Game 3. Pittsburgh’s league-leading power play notched three goals on seven opportunities and is now 4-15 (26.66%) in the series, which is almost bang-on its season average. Meanwhile Philadelphia went 0-6 with the man-advantage.

After a mediocre regular season by his lofty standards (29 goals, 89 points in 82 games), Sidney Crosby is proving in the playoffs that he remains the most dominant player in the world with four goals and seven points in the first three games alone. He opened the scoring in Game 3 on a dynamic wraparound and added three assists, including setting up a second-period marker just five seconds after Pittsburgh made it 3-0, which tied the NHL record for fastest two playoff goals (see 2:29 mark of video above).

Key Injuries & Absences

First-line center Sean Couturier was injured at practice on Tuesday and had to be helped off the ice by trainers. The Flyers are not releasing many details of the injury, which occurred when he collided with teammate Radko Gudas. His absence would be massive. He leads Philadelphia in scoring in the playoffs (3 points in 3 games), was second on the team in goals in the regular season (31), and logs the most minutes of all the Philly forwards.

[Couturier’s] absence would be massive. [The 31-goal-scorer] logs the most minutes of all the Philly forwards.

Even a slowed-down version of Couturier would make Philadelphia significantly less potent.

The Penguins are dealing with a significant absence of their own after Game 3; 29-goal-scorer Patric Hornqvist, who had three points through three playoff games, is out with an upper-body injury.

Team Stats

Betting Results & Trends*

*All statistics date back to regular season.

Score Prediction

It would be hard to overstate how big a blow it would be for Philadelphia to lose Couturier. If you’re going to beat Pittsburgh, which has the best one-two punch up the middle in the league, you need your own elite centers who can go head to head with Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. If Couturier can’t go, it would likely be rookie Nolan Patrick skating between Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek.

Patrick is having a fine freshman season (13 goals, 30 points, 13:43 TOI), but Couturier is a seven-year vet who’s finished top-ten in Selke voting twice. There’s a big difference.

If you’re going to beat Pittsburgh … you need your own elite centers who can go head to head with Crosby and Malkin.

Without knowing more about the injury, the safer assumption is that we see a Couturier that is substantially less than 100%, creating huge matchup problems for Philly coach Dave Hakstol.

The way Crosby has been playing this postseason — and, really, the last three postseasons — the Penguins should be able to take a commanding 3-1 series lead tonight.