Pens expected to win, emotions still raw as season ends

PHILADELPHIA (93.7 The Fan) – “Right now, it’s raw.”

Pens head coach Dan Muse trying hard to hold in his emotions sitting at a postgame media table at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia after losing 1-0 in overtime in Game 6 Wednesday night to the Flyers.

“At no point today did I expect our season to be over,” Muse continued. “It’s not the way this group thinks, it’s not the way I think.”

“It’s unfortunate, especially the second half of that game (and) overtime we had some really good looks,” said Pens captain Sidney Crosby. “We were a shot away from going back to Pittsburgh for Game 7. It just comes down to bounces sometimes.”

The Pens outshot the Flyers 42-32 for the game including owning a dozen more shots in the third period in overtime. Ultimately they just couldn’t get anything past Flyers goalie Dan Vladar.

“I think it was a great effort from the guys, I think we played the way we intended to from the beginning,” said defenseman Erik Karlsson. “All great to them, they bent, and they bent hard, but they didn’t break. That’s why they are moving on and we are not. As much as it sucks, you got to realize you are playing against good players and other good teams. We were outplayed for the series.”

Especially in the first two games and while they played better in Game 3, the Pens couldn’t sustain it past the first period last Wednesday. Pens were looking to be the fifth team to come back from down 3-0 to win a series in NHL history.

“If we had a little better start, we would win the series,” said Pens goalie Arturs Silovs, who finished 2-1 in his three starts.

“Putting yourself in that position is tough, but I think we all had a lot of belief that we could dig ourselves out of it,” Crosby said. “I think our game showed that, just unfortunate we got behind early in the series.”

Karlsson said this team, while experienced, just couldn’t find that second gear in the playoffs. Maybe there was a little bad luck, but he made sure to credit Philadelphia.

Still, it was much better than the expectations at the start of the season, hence the team’s postseason marketing slogan of ‘flipping the script’. Talk in the preseason, locally and nationally, was about being in position for the top draft pick, not being back in the playoffs after missing three straight seasons.

“We understand the expectations coming in,” Crosby said. “I don’t think that takes away the sting from this any more. When we have time to look back on the season, there are a lot of things to like. I think right now while it’s still fresh with how close we were, we thought we had a chance to get back in the series. It just didn’t work.”

“I love this group, they were awesome,” Muse said. “From start to finish, going back to training camp. What the outside expectations are were never what the inside expectations were. All I really cared about is what this group thought and how they believed in themselves. When things got hard they found a way to dig in and keep pushing. I’m proud of each guy on this team and everything we worked to accomplish this year.”

“It’s a lot right now. I think everybody on this team, all the players and staff, they invested a lot. When it’s over it hurts a lot.”