The Philadelphia Flyers are just one win away from sending the arch-rival Pittsburgh Penguins packing from the Stanley Cup playoffs, and they were led by a unit nobody expected to carry the load.
Trevor Zegras, Nick Seeler, Rasmus Ristolainen, and Noah Cates all scored their first NHL playoff goals, with Sean Couturier and Noah Juulsen each recording two assists.
It was Couturier's unit, with Garnet Hathaway and Luke Glendening, that spearheaded the Flyers' charge and comeback from a dismal start.
"I'm not sure what it was," Ristolainen said. "But obviously we didn't start as well as we started the first two games on the road."
Evgeni Malkin gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead with a power play goal that stemmed from a Couturier penalty, but the captain led by example from there on out.
The Flyers launched a furious second-period comeback, which was ignited by a scrum that initially began as just Travis Konecny and Bryan Rust scrapping after the whistle.
"There's a scrum there, and we get the extra penalty. That changed everything, and then it took a long time to get it all sorted out," Penguins head coach Dan Muse said after the game.
"Can we do things better to get momentum back? Sure, but I don't think it should have factored in the way it did today."
Muse's frustration was a bit misplaced, given the Penguins had five power plays to the Flyers' three.
Matvei Michkov was whistled three times: once for roughing in the aforementioned scrum, once for embellishing an Evgeni Malkin cross check, and once for roughing after coming to the defense of goalie Dan Vladar after a whistle.
Zegras, Ristolainen, and Seeler tallied within six minutes of each other to put the Flyers up 3-1 in the second period, and while a tentative start to the final frame saw the Penguins pull one back at 3-2, the Flyers settled in from there.
Cates posted up on Stuart Skinner in the blue paint, received a pass from Zegras, opened his hips and pivoted inside to make a nifty move in close and finish inside the far post.
Forward Owen Tippett scored an empty-net goal, his first playoff tuck since May 16, 2021, to seal an intense 5-2 win.
"I think at the start of the third there, maybe we were sitting back a little bit," Konecny assessed. "Once we found our legs again and started playing, not to try to win the game by sitting back, but by playing aggressive, I thought we did a good job."
Where and when the Flyers truly turned the tide, though, was halfway through the first period, when Garnet Hathaway and Sean Couturier doled out big hits on Penguins players to bring the Xfinity Mobile Arena faithful back to life.
From there, the Flyers were able to assert themselves more confidently as a group, and they did so after watching their leaders lead by example.
Tippett recorded a whopping 11 hits, accounting for 25% of the team's 44 hits on his own. Porter Martone added six, Hathaway had four, and Couturier and Glendening each had two.
"He just does everything the right way. Never complains. Really underrated move by Danny [Briere]. I don't think people really realize, we pick this guy up off waivers like nothing, and all of a sudden this guy's been a big cog for that fourth line," head coach Rick Tocchet said of Glendening.
"That fourth line has really given us an identity, especially these playoffs, but even before that."
Now, the band of misfits identity that the Flyers proudly boast has guided them to a stunning 3-0 series lead against the Penguins in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
On Saturday, they'll have the opportunity to sweep the Penguins on home ice.