The eighth seeded New York Islanders held serve on their home ice in Game 5 against the vaunted Pittsburgh Penguins, winning 6-4 thanks to their elevated intensity and some shoddy goaltending from Penguins' stopper Marc-Andre Fleury.
The Islanders racked up 24 shots on goal against Fleury and netted six of them; it was the third straight game Fleury had allowed at least four goals. Through the 2012-2013 postseason's first four games, Fleury's goals against average is 3.4, up more than a full goal from his regular season average of 2.39, and his save percentage has dropped two points, from 91 percent to 89. Making matters worse, this is actually a less precipitous drop from the regular season to the postseason than he endured last year.
Fleury's failure to prevent his opponents from scoring has become a glaring issue, and may lead to his benching for Game 5. Penguins coach Dan Bylsma did not commit to his struggling goalie for Thursday's game when he spoke to reporters.
"When you lose hockey games, you've got to look for answers and reasons why," Bylsma said. "We had swings in this game and some unfortunate bounces and some bad goals, but at the end of the day we let in six goals and that is way too many."
Bylsma expressed confidence in Fleury's backup Tomas Vokoun, saying, "He has had success and won hockey games against this team and has been successful this year. We're going to regroup and come back and come out for Game 5 with a new focus."
James Neal, who scored the first goal of the game for the Penguins, appeared to be happy to head back to Pittsburgh for Game 5 after dealing with the loud Long Island crowd. "Momentum shifts so quickly," Neal said. "Once you regain it you've got to keep it. You saw how energetic their crowd was and how much they fed off that. We just need to put this one behind us and get back to our game. I don't think we've gotten there yet."
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