Newsletter Subscribe
Enter your email address below and subscribe to our newsletter
Game Preview: Philadelphia Flyers @ Pittsburgh Penguins , Round 1 Game 5, 4/27/2026
Share your love
Who: Philadelphia Flyers (3-1) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (1-3) in Game 5 of the best of seven series
How to Watch: Locally broadcast on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and NBC Sports Philadelphia, nationally on ESPN, streaming on ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Penguins are fighting to make sure they have a path ahead. That would be a Game 6, back in Philadelphia on Wednesday night if Pittsburgh wins today to extend the series.
Opponent Track: The Flyers are up 3-1 in the series and looking to close out and move onto next round against the Carolina Hurricanes. Carolina wrapped up a sweep of Ottawa on Saturday and now sits back to await the PIT/PHI winner in the next round.
Hidden Stat: From Pens PR, Arturs Silovs (28 saves in Game 4) became the second goaltender in franchise history to make his Penguins playoff debut in an elimination contest and earn a win, following Frank Pietrangelo (Game 6 of 1991 division semifinals).
Hidden Stat 2.0: By my count the Penguins are 11-13 in the Sidney Crosby era when facing elimination in the playoffs (11-12 in the games Crosby has played, 0-1 when he hasn’t in 2011 vs TB). The Pens have won two games in the same series when facing elimination on three occasions (2009 vs DET, 2012 vs PHI, 2016 vs TB).
Getting to know the Flyers
Travis Konecny – Christian Dvorak – Porter Martone
Denver Barkey – Trevor Zegras – Owen Tippett
Alex Bump – Noah Cates – Tyson Foerster
Luke Glendening – Sean Couturier – Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim / Rasmus Ristolainen
Cam York / Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler / Noah Juulsen
Goalies: Dan Vladar and Samuel Ersson
Potential scratches: Matvei Michkov, Garrett Wilson, Carl Grundstrom, Emil Andrae, Helge Grans, David Jiricek, Oscar Eklind, Oliver Bonk, Hunter McDonald, Jacob Gaucher, Aleksei Kolosov, Carson Bjarnason
Injured Reserve: Rodrigo Abols (fractured ankle), Nikita Grebenkin (upper body)
- It looks like there is going to be a lineup change among forwards for the Flyers for the first time in this series. Michkov is going out and Alex Bump is headed in to make his NHL playoff debut, based on a practice the Flyers held yesterday before traveling to Pittsburgh.
- Michkov hasn’t done much of anything (no points, four shots on goal and barely averaging above 10 minutes per game) but was Philadelphia’s fourth highest scorer with 51 points in the regular season. Removing him would take some skill out of their lineup, even though he hasn’t been able to get much of anything going as it was.
- There was another change in the middle lines with Barkey and Foerster trading spots. Barkey scored a goal in Game 4 on a nice setup from Zegras, it looks like the Flyers will be wanting to see them play together.
- Updated the scratch list for the Flyers, with their AHL affiliate didn’t qualify for the playoffs they have quite the taxi squad of young players sticking around.
Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Elmer Soderblom – Ben Kindel – Anthony Mantha
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea / Ilya Solovyov
Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Stuart Skinner
Potential Scratches: Connor Clifton, Justin Brazeau, Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves, Jack St. Ivany, Sergei Murashov
IR: Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones (season-ending shoulder surgery)
- The Penguins did not have practice yesterday while traveling back home. That probably means there will be a well-attended gameday skate this morning for the club where we’ll see what, if any, changes happen from last game. Being as it was a win, the status quo sounds like the play at this point.
- We updated the Penguin scratch list as well, technically Murashov is up with the NHL roster right now to serve as an informal emergency third goalie. It’s expected he’ll be assigned back to the AHL by the time WBS’s series kicks off on Thursday against Hershey, assuming the NHL Penguins are still alive and kicking by that point.
- Crazy good stat about Letang being the first Penguin defenseman to register a playoff GWG in an elimination game since Darius Kasparaitis ‘sniped’ Dominik Hasek in the 2001 series against Buffalo. Wild last game was the first time since back then given all the playoff games played in the Crosby era, though from the hidden stat above there were ‘only’ 10 GWG’s when facing elimination prior to Letang’s goal on Saturday.
Evgeni Malkin had a two-point night in Game 1 to tie Joe Sakic for seventh all-time in NHL playoff history multi-point games. Sidney Crosby still sits solidly in third place after his multi-point last outing in Game 3.