PITTSBURGH (AP) — Connor Dewar, Kris Letang and Elmer Soderblom scored and the Pittsburgh Penguins avoided elimination for the second time in 48 hours with a 3-2 win over Philadelphia in Game 5 of their first-round series on Monday night.
Sidney Crosby shook off a shot to his left knee to add two assists for the Penguins, who cut the Flyers’ lead in the best-of-seven series to 3-2.
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Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar (80) blocks shot with teammate Owen Tippett (74) defending against Pittsburgh Penguins' Connor Dewar (19) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins' Bryan Rust (17) collides with Philadelphia Flyers' Denver Barkey (52) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A shot by Pittsburgh Penguins' Elmer Soderblom gets past Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar (80) for a goal during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs (37) blocks a shot by Philadelphia Flyers' Noah Cates (27) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins' Elmer Soderblom (25) celebrates with Ben Kindel (81) and Anthony Mantha (39) after scoring against the Philadelphia Flyers during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Game 6 is Wednesday in Philadelphia, where the pressure will be on the Flyers to avoid putting themselves in danger of becoming just the fifth team in NHL history to blow a series after winning the first three games.
“We know it’s a big challenge going into there," Crosby said. "But I think we have a lot of belief in our group, and we’ve done it time and time again.”
Alex Bump scored in his playoff debut for Philadelphia, who rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie it on Travis Sanheim's second goal of the series 15:06 into the second.
Crosby, who limped to the bench and then to the training room for treatment minutes earlier after a blast from the point by teammate Ryan Shea appeared to hit the top of his left knee, helped put the Penguins back in front just over two minutes later when he fed the puck to Letang at the top of the Philadelphia zone.
Letang sent a shot toward Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar that sailed wide of the net before bouncing back toward Vladar. The puck smacked off Vladar's left pad, then his right and across the goal line to give Pittsburgh the lead for good.
“Bounces are part of the game,” Penguins coach Dan Muse said. “But I think you earn them when you're working and you try to do the right things. That’s usually when the bounces go your way.”
After four games of mostly low-event hockey, Game 5 started with a frantic pace, a style that favors the Penguins, who finished as the NHL's third-highest-scoring team during the regular season.
That offense went largely missing while Pittsburgh fell into a 3-0 hole. Pushed to the brink, it has returned with a flourish, and this time it wasn't just Crosby, Letang and Evgeni Malkin shouldering the burden.
Soderblom's first goal of the playoffs and Dewar's second gave Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead in the second period. Philadelphia responded behind Bump and Sanheim, but Letang's fluky score late in the second was the difference.
Pittsburgh will take the ice on Wednesday, having all the momentum after two games in which they looked like the resilient, resourceful group that was among the NHL's biggest surprises.
The Flyers and their late playoff surge were one of the others, though Philadelphia and its talented young core will have the difficult task of finishing off a more experienced group with Hall of Famers scattered across the roster.
“They are a veteran team, they know what it takes to win,” Vladar said. "We are still a young team. We’ve got to learn that. We’ve got to bounce back. Still try to play our game, not their game.”
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar (80) blocks shot with teammate Owen Tippett (74) defending against Pittsburgh Penguins' Connor Dewar (19) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins' Bryan Rust (17) collides with Philadelphia Flyers' Denver Barkey (52) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
A shot by Pittsburgh Penguins' Elmer Soderblom gets past Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar (80) for a goal during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs (37) blocks a shot by Philadelphia Flyers' Noah Cates (27) during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins' Elmer Soderblom (25) celebrates with Ben Kindel (81) and Anthony Mantha (39) after scoring against the Philadelphia Flyers during the first period of Game 5 in the first round of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series in Pittsburgh, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A spate of attacks against civilians and military bases in Colombia's southwestern region has raised security concerns as the country heads to a May presidential election in which crime is expected to be one of the top voter concerns.
Rebel groups have staged 26 attacks with explosives and drones since Friday, including a deadly blast Saturday on a highway between the cities of Cali and Popayan, according to Colombia’s defense ministry. The death toll in that explosion rose to 21 people on Monday.
Violence in the region is nothing new. Illegal groups have sought to control the area for decades, deeming it strategic for illicit activities, such as illegal mining and drug trafficking, including the cultivation of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine.
Authorities blamed a group known as the FARC-EMC for the lethal explosion, near a tunnel on the Pan-American Highway. The group is led by Nestor Vera — commonly known as Iván Mordisco — a former member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, who refused to join a 2016 peace deal with the nation’s government.
Sergio Guzmán, a political risk analyst in Colombia's capital, Bogota, said that Mordisco’s group could be trying to demonstrate that it has the capabilities to do serious damage, and is seeking to “establish its credibility” with Colombia’s next government as it positions itself for future negotiations.
“Part of what they are doing is establishing leverage towards the future,” Guzmán said.
Under President Gustavo Petro, a former member of a guerrilla group, the Colombian government has attempted to stage peace talks with the nation’s remaining rebel groups through a strategy known as " total peace."
The government has offered ceasefires to various groups in an effort to promote peace negotiations, but analysts say the strategy has failed, because these groups used the ceasefires to regroup, rearm and strengthen their grip over communities.
Groups like the FARC-EMC have been known to tax residents in areas under their control, and also forcibly recruit youth into their ranks.
“The government’s peace policy has been naïve,” said Javier Garay, a political science professor at Colombia’s Externado University. “They thought that if they had a condescending attitude towards these groups they would receive a positive response.”
In late 2023, the FARC-EMC entered peace talks with the Colombian government. But a faction led by Mordisco abandoned the talks in April 2024, and has been fighting the Colombian government since then.
Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said that Mordisco’s group is particularly strong in the provinces of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, where it's fighting for control of drug trafficking routes and illegal gold mines.
For the past two years, Mordisco’s group has also used drone attacks and car bombs, to respond to an offensive from the Colombian military in the Micay Canyon, a remote area covered with coca fields that is under the FARC-EMC’s grip.
Dickinson said that the latest attacks in southwest Colombia are one way for the group to show that it can sustain its “asymmetrical war” against the government.
Colombia’s defense minister on Sunday said that kidnappings and lockdowns enforced by rebel groups on communities had decreased in Cauca over the past year because of the government's actions.
In a nationally televised address Monday night, Petro said his government has fought drug trafficking and slowed down the cultivation of coca crops in Colombia, where he said 258,000 hectares (638,000 acres) were planted with coca in late 2025.
But the government’s total peace strategy has come under fire from the opposition, whose candidates are hoping to benefit from the nation’s security woes, as they promise to take a tougher stance on crime.
Petro is barred by Colombia’s constitution from running for another term. But his party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda, has promised to continue peace talks with rebel groups.
Cepeda said on X that he rejected the recent attacks in southwest Colombia, and urged authorities to investigate whether they were part of an effort to interfere with the election.
“It is worrying that these terrorist actions are happening in a region where there is ample support for our political project,” Cepeda said.
Voters in Colombia will head to the polls on May 31 to choose from 14 different presidential candidates, including Cepeda, and conservatives Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia.
While Cepeda favors the continuation of Petro’s “total peace” strategy, his conservative rivals have said that they favor confronting rebel groups and putting more military pressure on them before resuming peace talks.
Guzmán said that while this weekend’s attacks “deepen the discomfort” with the security situation in Colombia — where a presidential candidate was killed last year — both sides will try to profit from this new wave of violence.
“Government supporters will use the attacks as an opportunity to say that that this is exactly why we need to reach urgent agreements with (rebel) groups,” Guzmán said. “Detractors will say this is why we need to more aggressively attack them.”
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Soldiers stand next to a truck carrying chickens that was set on fire by dissident factions of the former FARC rebels in Jamundi, Colombia, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Soldiers stand next to a truck carrying chickens that was set on fire by dissident factions of the former FARC rebels in Jamundi, Colombia, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Soldiers stand next to a truck carrying chickens that was set on fire by dissident factions of the former FARC rebels in Jamundi, Colombia, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Soldiers stand next to a truck carrying chickens that was set on fire by dissident factions of the former FARC rebels in Jamundi, Colombia, Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Relatives of victims pay respects at the site of an attack on the Pan-American Highway in Cajibio, Colombia, Sunday, April 26, 2026, where at least a dozen people were killed in an attack authorities blamed on dissident groups of the former FARC rebels. (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
