Penguins are a win away from forcing a Game 7 at home against the Flyers after trailing series 3-0

The Pittsburgh Penguins are halfway to history.

Sidney Crosby and the Penguins are aiming to become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0. They’ve won two straight games to force Game 6 in Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

“It’s quite clear the situation for us is win or go home,” said Crosby, who had two assists in a 3-2 win Monday night. “I think that urgency, that desperation, whatever you want to call it, I think has brought (out) some of our best hockey because of it. So, we just gotta keep going here.”

The Flyers are among the four teams that have rallied to win a series after losing the first three games. They did it against Boston in the second round in 2010. Philadelphia ended up reaching the Stanley Cup Final that season, losing to Chicago.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Flyers forward Owen Tippett said. “We knew we weren’t going to win every game. Reset and get back at it.”

While Philadelphia aims to advance to the second round for the first time since 2020, there are two Game 5s on Wednesday night featuring series locked in a 2-2 tie.

The Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Canadiens 3-2 in Montreal in Game 4, tying the series and regaining home-ice advantage.

The Vegas Golden Knights squandered a three-goal lead but came back to defeat the Utah Mammoth 5-4 on Shea Theodore’s goal with 51.5 seconds left in overtime Monday night to even their series.

When/Where to Watch: Game 6, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. EDT (TNT).

Series: Flyers lead 3-2.

Philadelphia’s seemingly comfortable 3-0 series lead doesn’t feel quite so comfortable anymore, not after consecutive victories by the Penguins in which Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby has been at his brilliant best.

Crosby had a goal and an assist in Game 4, then backed it up with perhaps an even better performance in Game 5, dishing out a pair of helpers, the second of which set up Kris Letang’s game-winning goal just moments after Crosby took a slapshot to his left knee and limped to the training room.

While the Flyers are still in a solid position to do what all but four teams in NHL history have done — winning a series after taking the first three games — for a youth-laden club in its first playoff series in six years, the fourth win is proving to be the hardest.

“Even though 3-0 sounded nice, we knew it wasn’t going to be over,” Philadelphia goaltender Dan Vladar said.

It’s not. The Penguins have steadily regained the form that made them one of the league’s biggest surprises during the regular season. They received secondary scoring in Game 5— third-liner Elmer Soderblom scored his first of the playoffs and fourth-liner Connor Dewar notched his second — and then clamped down during the third period to extend their season.

A chance to shift all of the pressure on the Flyers awaits if Pittsburgh can find a way to force a Game 7.

“I think the last couple games we found our stride a bit,” said Crosby, who now has 100 wins in the playoffs. “We should feel good about that. ... We’re playing good hockey and we’ve got to go in there and find a way to win again.”

When/Where to Watch: Game 5, Wednesday, 7 p.m. EDT (ESPN).

Series: Tied 2-2.

After three overtime games, one was finally decided in regulation when Brandon Hagel scored two goals to lift the Lightning to a 3-2 win on Sunday night. Hagel has six goals in the series.

“He’s definitely become the straw that stirs our drink,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Even when we went down 2-0, he stood up and looked both ways and, literally I think, captivated the bench with what he was saying and the message he was delivering.”

Hagel’s words motivated his teammates and Max Crozier inspired them with his actions.

The Lightning were down 2-0 in the second period when Crozier flattened Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky with a hard hit in the middle of the ice. The legal check energized Tampa Bay and changed the momentum of the game.

“The hit obviously got our bench out of their seats,” Cooper said. “But you still have to take advantage of that. We score in the last minute of the second, and in the first minute of the third, and all of a sudden the game’s completely changed. It helped take the crowd out of it.”

The Canadiens have to rebound after wasting a two-goal lead at home and missing an opportunity to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. They can’t dwell on Game 4.

“That’s a veteran team. They’re very good at drawing penalties. They got talented players,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “They’re a tough team and we knew it was going to be a tough series. We’re right in it. We’re in a battle. It’s a fine line between winning and losing in these games, but we’re battling.”

When/Where to Watch: Game 5, Wednesday, 10 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV HBO Max).

Series: Tied 2-2.

This opening-round series has a sense of deja vu for the Golden Knights, and Vegas hopes that’s a good sign of what’s to come.

The Golden Knights opened last year’s playoffs by prevailing in six games over the Wild. Vegas split the first two games at home, was blown out in Game 3 at Minnesota and won in overtime in Game 4 before going on to take the next two games and the series.

And the series with the Mammoth?

The almost exact beginning.

But financial advisers often warn that past performances aren’t necessarily indicative of future results, and the Golden Knights know they have a fight on their hands if they are to advance to the second round.

“I really like our squad,” coach John Tortorella said. “The most important thing for our team is to know who we are, know who you are as a club, and we are a really good hockey club. No matter what happens, we move forward with the highs and lows of a series.”

There was plenty of both for both teams in Monday night’s 5-4 Vegas overtime victory at Salt Lake City.

The Golden Knights went up 3-0, Utah roared back with four unanswered goals and Vegas forced overtime in the third period. Then the Golden Knights thought they won in OT before an offside review wiped out Pavel Dorofeyev’s goal, and then actually won it on Jack Eichel’s sensational pass to Shea Theodore in the high slot for the winner with less than a minute left in overtime.

“There is plenty of hockey left in this series; a tied series going back,” Mammoth defenseman Ian Cole said. “It’s a three-game series. (We’re) focusing on what we can control and where we stand right now. I think that will do us well.”

AP Sports Writers Will Graves and Mark Anderson contributed to this report.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Utah Mammoth defenseman MacKenzie Weegar (52) and Vegas Golden Knights center Tomas Hertl (48) look to play the puck during the overtime period of Game 4 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series, Monday, April 27, 2026, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Tyler Tate)

Tampa Bay Lightning's Brandon Hagel (38) celebrates his goal over Montreal Canadiens with teammates Nikita Kucherov (86), Brayden Point (21), J.J. Moser (90) and Darren Raddysh (43) during the third period of Game 4 in a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series, in Montreal, Sunday, April 26, 2026. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP)

Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs (37) celebrates with Sidney Crosby (87) at the end 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' Sidney Crosby, right, is defended by Philadelphia Flyers' Luke Glendening (41) during the third 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)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted again Tuesday, this time in an investigation over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat against President Donald Trump.

The criminal case is the second in a matter of months against Comey and is part of the Trump administration Justice Department's relentless effort to prosecute political opponents of the Republican president. The seashells photo was posted nearly a year ago, but the indictment was secured as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, a Trump loyalist who previously served as his personal lawyer, aims to prove to the president that he's the right person to hold the job permanently.

The fact that the Justice Department pursued a new case against the ex-FBI director months after a separate and unrelated indictment was dismissed could open the government to claims of a vindictive prosecution and to arguments that it is going out of its way to target Comey, who had overseen the early months of an investigation into whether the Republican president’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of that year’s election. Comey was fired by Trump months into the president’s first term, and they have openly feuded ever since.

The two-count indictment charges Comey with “knowingly and willfully” making a threat to “take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon" Trump and with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. It offers no evidence to support the claim that Comey knowingly made a threat against the president, especially since he has said the opposite, but suggested a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret” the message as a threat to do harm.

The case was filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the state where Comey found the seashells.

Comey's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment Tuesday, and a Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately comment.

The prosecution arises from a May post on Instagram in which Comey shared a photo of seashells he saw on a walk in the arrangement of “86 47.” He has said he assumed that the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence. Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Nonetheless, Comey was swiftly interviewed by the Secret Service after Trump administration officials asserted that he was advocating the assassination of Trump, the 47th president.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Trump, in a Fox News Channel interview in May, accused Comey of knowing “exactly what that meant."

“A child knows what that meant,” Trump said. "If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear.”

The former FBI director was indicted in September on charges that he lied to and obstructed Congress related to testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorized inside information about an investigation to be provided to a journalist. He denied any wrongdoing, and the case was subsequently dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who brought the indictment was illegally appointed.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president -- an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

Blanche was elevated earlier this month from deputy attorney general to acting attorney general, replacing Pam Bondi, who had frustrated Trump with the department's struggles to build successful criminal cases against his adversaries. Blanche since then has moved quickly to announce politically charged prosecutions, including a case last week against the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center, which is accused by the Justice Department of defrauding donors by paying donors to infiltrate hate groups. The group has denied any wrongdoing.

Comey is among many Trump foes to face scrutiny over the last year.

The Justice Department, for instance, is also pursuing a criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, another key figure in the Russia investigation -- one of Trump’s chief grievances and a saga that he and his supporters have long sought retaliation for. Brennan has denied doing anything wrong.

CNN was the first to report the second indictment against Comey.

Follow the AP's coverage of former FBI Director James Comey at https://apnews.com/hub/james-comey.

FILE - Former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey at Harvard University's Institute of Politics' JFK Jr. Forum in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

FILE - Former FBI Director James Comey speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)