Yeah, I've definitely seen this before.  The Flyers tear through the first two rounds of the playoffs and then they face a halfway decent team and they get destroyed.  The teams have been different over the last few years and this year it happens to be the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Are the Pens good?  Of course.  They have two of the best forwards [Malkin, Crosby] and one heck of a good netminder in Marc-Andre Fleury.  Yes, they've lost the first three games of the series and are one loss away from being sent home to watch the Penguins play for the Stanley Cup but does that mean they're out of it?  Not completely. 

If they have any hope of hoping to come back in this series they need to do a few things.  First, they need to put Crosby and Malkin into the boards several times.  No, I'm not talking about injuring them, I'm just talking about pounding on them and keeping them off their game.  That's hard to do considering the Flyers are down two of their top defensemen.  Second, they need to get themselves in the middle of Pittsburgh's passing lanes.  The thing about Pitt's offense is that they're superb passers.  They can fling a saucer pass across the ice without even looking up.  You break up their passing lanes, you break up their offense.  Third, they need to get traffic in front of Fleury.  A LOT of traffic.  Fleury is a very good goaltender but he's not the best.  So far this series he's been able to see damn near every shot coming at him and well, the ones he hasn't seen have found their way onto the scoreboard for the Flyers. 

Sounds simple but it isn't.  These Penguins are very fast skaters so getting those things accomplished is going to very VERY difficult and so far the Flyers haven't figured out how to get it done.  I doubt they're going to figure it out in Game 4 and keep it going for the following 3 games and win the series but.  If they can get at least one win, that'll be enough for me.  I at least want to see it turn into a real series, not a clean sweep.  

So I'll be here tomorrow night wearing my jersey and hat drinking out of my Flyers glass hoping they'll figure it out in Game 4 but I'm not holding my breath.  Stranger things have happened though....just not to a Philadelphia sports team.