It could be said that in hockey, the player that represents your best penalty-killer is the goaltender. The same could be said of the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury put on a show Tuesday night in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Quarter-finals with the Pens coming out on top with a 3-1 victory in Philadelphia. Fleury stopped 45 of the 46 shots he faced while the Penguins team was outshot by a lot.
That is goaltending at its finest.
Along with the spectacular saves he had - stopping pucks that I didn't even think he had chance to stop - Fleury had all the moves, moving all over the place in the net and stopping wide-open shots the Flyers took.
And who knows? You could say that if it hadn't been for Fleury's amazing performance in net Tuesday, this series could have been tied 2-2 heading into Thursday night's Game 5 back at Mellon Arena.
One thing is also clear: You need to have a goaltender that is playing at his very best if you want to go far in the playoffs and make a run at the coveted Stanley Cup Finals.
That is exactly what Fleury did for the Pens last season until the team ran into the too-experienced and too-talented Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Fleury led all goalies in the playoffs last season in save percentage (.933), tied for first in wins (14) and finished second in goals against average at 1.97.
His record was 14-6 in the playoffs and probably his most memorable performance was in the thrilling triple-overtime victory in the Finals against the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final from a year ago, stopping 55 of 58 shots in the Penguins' 4-3 victory.
Right-winger Petr Sykora provided the game-winner after saying that he was going to do so.
Another good thing in these playoffs against the Flyers is that the third-line is providing some offense and not relying on centers Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby to score most of the goals.
This was evident in Game 4, even though Crosby had a goal, and a controversial one to say the least, as he went hard to the net scoring the first goal of the game.
Center Tyler Kennedy scored the second goal of the game Tuesday night and now has two goals, which gives him an overall of two points in the series.
But Kennedy is not the only third-line player providing offense.
Although left-winger Matt Cooke has not scored a goal, he did show up big in Tuesday's game as had had two assists on the first two goals (third goal was an empty-net) and now has three points in the series.
Center Maxime Talbot has only one point as he assisted on the empty-net goal in Game 4 but he has been able to win most of his face offs during the series.
But, if this play of third- and fourth-line keeps up and Fleury continues his stellar play going along with the two superstars in Malkin and Crosby scoring their goals, this team has the making of going deep in the playoffs.
Malkin currently leads the playoffs in points with seven (four goals and three assists).
Other playoff notes: In the Eastern Conference the top-seeded Boston Bruins beat the injury-plagued Montreal Canadiens 4-1 and swept the Canadiens 4-0 to move on to the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
The New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals 2-1 to take a commanding 3-1 lead in their series, and Capitals leader and center Alexander Ovechkin scored his first goal of the series.
The Bruins join Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks out of the Western Conference as the first two teams to advance to the conference semifinals.
The third-seeded Canucks beat the sixth-seeded St. Louis Blues 3-2 in overtime and swept the Blues 4-0 Tuesday night to advance to the Western Conference semi-finals.
Also, the Columbus Blue Jackets lost to the Detroit Red Wings Tuesday night 4-1 in Columbus as the team is in their first playoff series ever and hosted their first-ever home playoff game at Nationwide Arena.
The Red Wings have a commanding 3-0 series lead.
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