Neuvirth Steals Game 5 Win Over Caps

WASHINGTON — Call it Michal Neuvirth’s reprisal.

Always hurt, never a starter, forgotten in Washington.

Well they might remember Friday night after the goalie, now a Flyer, made 44 saves against the Capitals to force a Game 6 and help the Flyers win 2-0.

It was a goalie performance not many of his teammates knew exactly how to put into words.

“Not like that. Not live,” an exhausted Claude Giroux said. “It was pretty impressive. The way he worked, it was pretty amazing. We did the best we could in front of them trying to eliminate the high-quality chances and they were shooting pucks from everywhere. He did a good job of controlling rebounds. It was pretty impressive.”

The closest Neuvirth’s old team could get to scoring was Jason Chimera crossing the goalline in the waning seconds of the second period. Only problem was the puck wasn’t in there with him.

Save after acrobatic save, Neuvirth saved his team’s bacon. The Flyers clearly didn’t have their best game, or even their third best game in Game 5.

In an elimination game for the Capitals, they drop to 1-8 since 2013 and 12-22 in Game 5s in franchise history. Perhaps it’s starting to get in their heads.

“We’re just playing Game 7 every night,” said Ryan White, the Flyers’ first goal scorer. “We’ve been doing it for a while. We didn’t have our best games maybe at the start of the series and they definitely found some wins in there. But I still felt we were right there with them. We just couldn’t find a way to win, and these last two games have been Game 7 for us. We’re just trying to find a way to win. The past is the past. Stats are stats. It doesn’t matter. We’ve just got to go out and win Game 6, and that’s the plan.”

Game 6 will be on Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center. Puck drops at noon.