from Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

“Sometimes you hear the football analogy, when it’s a rivalry, ‘Well, it really doesn’t matter where the records are at or where the teams are at. You’re playing a rival, and they’re coming into your building,’” Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said Tuesday.

“This feels exactly like that. … You’re not really so focused on their record or how they’ve been up or down.”

Philadelphia has won six of the eight regular-season games these teams have played at Consol Energy Center, so it is understandable that the Penguins aren’t taking the Flyers’ troubles at face value.

Predictably, they insist they are not enjoying watching a team they despise like no other sputter and struggle — “I don’t pay that much attention to what other teams are going through,” right winger Pascal Dupuis said — and that they don’t expect the Flyers to continue spiraling downward indefinitely

“There’s too much talent and too many experienced guys there,” defenseman Brooks Orpik said. “It’s not really a young team. I don’t see it going that long. I think they’ll snap out of it.

“Whether or not they can make a good enough run [to reach the playoffs] … sometimes when you get in a big hole, it’s tough to get out of.”

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