Poehling, fourth line 'brought what works best' in blowing by Flyers

PHILADELPHIA -- When the public address announcer announced the three stars at the end of the Penguins' 4-1 win over the Flyers on this Friday evening at Wells Fargo Center, it was a straight reading of the names on the fourth line, as if they're aligned left to right:

1. Ryan Poehling
2. Teddy Blueger
3. Josh Archibald 

That trio combined for three goals (and seven points), while playing the usual sound, defensive hockey that is expected of their role to help extend their team's winning streak to a league-best five, and their recent run of quality play to 7-1-1.

"They've really built an identity for themselves as far as their plan to help us win games," Mike Sullivan said of the fourth line. "First and foremost, they're a real conscientious, stingy, defensive line. They've got a great defensive conscience, they compete hard on pucks. And when they can chip in offensively like they did tonight, it's just that much more of a bonus for us."

That line did their job -- they were the most effective line defensively in the game, limiting the Flyers to four shot attempts and three shots, a team-low in each category -- but chipping in occasionally on offense is expected of that line, and three goals is exceptional.

Archibald opened the scoring midway through the first period, after converting on a rebound that stemmed from a two-on-one with Blueger:

"I was just lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time there to pick up the rebound," Archibald said afterward.

After a late first-period tally from Sidney Crosby extended the Penguins' lead to 2-0, Poehling doubled the lead in the middle frame with two goals of his own. The first came off of a redirect from a Blueger shot just under three minutes into the period:

Poehling sneaked a shot between Carter Hart's skate and the post later in the period, making it a 4-0 game and causing John Tortorella to yank Hart in favor of backup Felix Sandstrom:

I asked Poehling afterward what was clicking so well for his line to bring that kind of offensive production.

"I think we just brought what works best," he said. "We dominate them down low and I think that was the biggest thing. We did a good job supporting one another down low and we had a lot of puck battles in the corners that ended up with us. It was a fun night for us."

Blueger said that his line just stuck to the "foundation" of their game.

"Poehling and Archibald just complement each other really well," Blueger said. "Archie's speed and physicality and Poehls makes smart plays with the puck, good hands. So I think it's a good balance for us. Minnesota was similar, where we had a lot of possession, a lot of territory and the scoring chances I think tonight were similar in that way."

It's undeniable that the fourth line has looked significantly better since Blueger's return eight days ago in St. Paul, Minn., where Poehling shifted over to wing and where the winning streak began.

"You know what you're getting from him and where he's going to be," Poehling said of Blueger's impact. "That chemistry is always nice and also he's real solid on draws, so it's nice when you're starting with the puck on your stick. You get a lot of plays that way, we can kind of maneuver around that. Those things have been great so far for us."

The Penguins got a power play with 1:52 left in the third period and were looking to get that group one more goal. Sullivan sent out all three of his fourth-line forwards along with Kris Letang and Jeff Petry for the man advantage, and it was clear that the goal was to help Poehling get the goal needed to complete the hat trick. Even in that moment, Poehling wasn't selfish and was just trying to make the best plays for his teammates, and deferred to Blueger on a scoring opportunity in the final seconds of regulation.

"Guys were giving me crap for not shooting that last one," Poehling told me with a laugh. "But I saw Teddy back-door and wanted to hit him on that."

Archibald, sitting one stall over from Poehling, chimed in.

"There will be more opportunities for that," he said.

The Penguins aren't going to get three-goal nights from their fourth line on a regular basis. But if this fourth line can continue to develop chemistry with each other and start chipping in more while maintaining their strong defensive game? That can be a huge "X" factor for this team.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Crosby scored the Penguins' second goal, the 52nd of his career against Philadelphia, moving him past Mario Lemieux for the most by any player against the Flyers in their history. He sits at 121 career points and 69 career assists against the Flyers, three points and four assists shy of tying Lemieux for the lead in either category:

• Marcus Pettersson dropped the gloves with heavyweight fighter Nicolas Deslauriers in the second period after a hit Deslauriers made on Letang. Deslauriers definitely got the better of the fight, but Pettersson absolutely held his own, and the matchup wasn't as uneven as one would have expected given the two opponents. I have more on that in a Freeze Frame.

• Tristan Jarry earned the win (the 101st of his career) with 29 saves on 30 shots.

• Zack MacEwan got a penalty shot in the third period and Jarry made the easy pad save. He's now 4-for-6 in penalty shots in his career:

• Jeff Carter went an incredible 14-1 in faceoffs.

• Petry was again on the top power-play unit, and Bryan Rust remained on the second unit. The Penguins went 0-for-3 on the power play but the top unit had more movement, more shots getting through than we've seen earlier in the year.

• The coaching staff had a bet with the players on the Minnesota-Winnipeg-Chicago road trip that if they won the first two games, the coaching staff would grow mustaches through Christmas. If they won all three, they would grow mustaches through the Winter Classic. Sullivan's new facial hair isn't very popular back home:

• This was the first win in the Reverse Retro jerseys, The Penguins are now 1-2 in those. See, I told you the pigeon wasn't cursed.

• Lou Nolan, the public address announcer here for 51 years, is seriously the worst I've heard when it comes to pronouncing names. It's always something anytime we're here. It's not a matter of the names being complicated, either. It's just a matter of not giving the pronunciation guide a glance and seeing that "Jarry" and "Poehling" are not pronounced "Jerry" and "Pohling."

• The back wall of the press box has a bunch of photos of current and former players. When we were here last season the photo of Ron Hextall -- and only that photo -- was mysteriously missing from the wall. Just an empty spot where it used to be. It's back up there now:

TAYLOR HAASE / DKPS

• As always, boos for the captain when the starting lineup is announced:

• Funny moment earlier in the game: They showed a Penguins fan on the videoboard in the first period, looking to elicit some boos from the crowd. The girl stood up, whipped a Terrible Towel out of her back pocket and started clearly yelling, "Five Stanley Cups!" ... and Archibald scored to put the Penguins up 1-0 seconds later.

• Gritty dressed up as a turkey for Thanksgiving:

• Obligatory press-box snack update: This place doesn't have much, but what they do have is more than enough. There's the standard popcorn, but then some prepackaged soft pretzels that are miles above the soft pretzel sticks we get at home. Don't ask how many I ate during the game, and definitely don't ask how many made it into my bag to take home. Those pretzels coupled with a fountain soda machine that has Coke Zero in it gives this place a solid B+. 

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE THREE STARS

As selected at Wells Fargo Center:

1. Ryan Poehling, Penguins LW
2. Teddy Blueger, Penguins C
3. Josh Archibald, Penguins RW

THE INJURIES

• None. Really, I promise.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Bryan Rust
Brock McGinn - Jeff Carter - Danton Heinen
Ryan Poehling - Teddy Blueger - Josh Archibald

Marcus Pettersson - Kris Letang
P.O Joseph - Jeff Petry
Brian Dumoulin - Jan Rutta

And for John Tortorella's Flyers

Noah Cates - Kevin Hayes - Owen Tippett
Kieffer Bellows - Morgan Frost - Zack MacEwen
Nicolas Deslauriers - Tanner Laczynski - Joel Farabee
Jackson Cates - Lukas Sedlak - Patrick Brown

Ivan Provorov - Tony DeAngelo
Travis Sanheim - Justin Braun
Nick Seeler - Rasmus Ristolainen

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins play the Maple Leafs Saturday, 7:08 p.m., at PPG Paints Arena. I'll make the drive back from Philadelphia in the morning and join Danny Shirey at that game. There's no morning skate scheduled. Sullivan will meet with reporters two hours before faceoff.

THE CONTENT

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