After two pretty anemic games at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, the Flyers came out with a fiery vengeance in their game 3 matchup with the Penguins.

The Flyers struck early with a backhand goal by Jeff Carter, the regular seasonleader in goals and points. Off a pass from Joffrey Lupul, Carter skated towards Pens’ goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and the suddenly broke towards his left, wristing a backhand into the net.

The Flyers, perhaps inspired by a pre-game Stanley Cup video of the Broad Street Bullies, were clearly sick of the way they were manhandled and treated in the first two games and made it clear that they would not be pushed around in their own building. The Flyers hit early, often, and hard.

“You look at Game 1, and I thought we sat back too much and let them dictate the pace,” forward Danny Briere said. “We can’t sit back and let them dictate because guys like [Sydney] Crosby and [Evgeni] Malkin are going to hurt you.”

Just over two minutes after Carter’s goal, Flyers’ captain Mike Richards made it 2-0 with a powerplay goal off a beautiful pass right in front of the net by Mike Knuble.

Try as they might to contain the Penguins top-two, Malkin ended up with two goals of his own, including one late in the first period to bring the Penguins within one after one.

The Penguins would tie the game just 13 seconds into the second period on a Rob Scuderi wristshot from the blueline.

The eventual game winner would come a little over four minutes later by the man that allowed the Penguins to win game 2. Claude Giroux broke Chris Kunitz’s stick during the overtime period in game 2, creating the powerplay that led to the Penguins game winning goal.

“I think he felt really bad because he cares,” said coach John Stevens. “I sat with him on the plane and just really talked about his learning experience. We tell any young player on our team, if the intention to do the right thing is there and the effort is there, mistakes are going to happen. In the case of the game in Pittsburgh, the intentions were there, he was playing hard — come back and have a big game tomorrow.”

Giroux would make up for it  Sunday with a one-timer right in front of Fleury on a needle-point pass by Briere, his second assist of the game.

Just four and a half minutes later, Giroux would make an even more impressive play. With the Flyers shorthanded, Giroux skated around the back of the net, and upon seeing Simon Gagne skating towards the far end of Fleury, threaded his own needle of a pass, eerily similar to Briere’s, for his second assist of the playoffs. It was Gagne’s second goal of the playoffs, and his first of two on the day.

“I saw Simon go to the net,” said Giroux. “I was on the penalty kill so I wanted to play it safe, so I fired it to the far post and it ended up on his stick. So it was good.”

While Giroux may not have been overly impressed with the play, his coach and his captain were.

“He’s been known to have elite vision,” Stevens said. “I’m not sure there’s many players that are capable of making a play like that. He didn’t just throw that blind. He hung onto it … he threaded the needle and got it to the back post. It was really an unbelievable pass by a young player.”

“His hockey sense is unbelievable,” Richards added. “To see him see different players around the ice and make different passes, he’s been great for us all year and tonight was no different.”

The Flyers would go on to score two more goals, including an empty net goal by Gagne, and Malkin would get his second of the night, but the Penguins were ultimately outmatched by a Flyers team that truly understood the stakes.

“It was a huge game. We didn’t want to go down 3-0 because that’s a tough task,” Briere said. “We have to enjoy it for a few minutes here.”

The Flyers and Penguins take the ice again on Tuesday at 7:05.