PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby whipped in a one-timer and raised his hands in the air. It was subtle, the kind of celebration you do when your team is trailing, 3-0, in a playoff series.

But with the opening goal of Game 4 in Philadelphia, Crosby announced his presence in the series. He hasn’t looked back.

With the Penguins on the brink of elimination, their captain has been the best player on the ice in each of the past two games, racking up four points and dominating nearly every shift. They have cut the Philadelphia Flyers’ advantage to 3-2 heading into Wednesday’s Game 6 at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

“When things get hard, when backs are against the wall, there’s no doubt in my mind that [Crosby is] gonna lead the charge in terms of elevating and finding a way here to do everything possible to help this team win a hockey game,” Penguins coach Dan Muse said after his team’s 3-2 victory in Game 5 Monday at PPG Paints Arena. “And you’ve seen that the last two games.”

No player in NHL history has more goals and points against the Flyers in both the regular season and playoffs than Crosby. But he was uncharacteristically quiet in the first three games of this first-round series. He had just one point, a secondary assist on a power-play goal in Game 3.

But with the season on the line, Crosby came to life. In Game 4, his first goal of the playoffs gave the Penguins an essential 1-0 lead. His second point Saturday was even prettier.

He won a battle along the boards, kicked the puck to Kris Letang and screened a Flyers defender so that his longtime teammate could rip home a third-period goal that was the game-winner.

Crosby expressed confidence the Penguins had found their game with that win. And from the first puck drop of Game 5, he played like a man possessed — or perhaps like a man who wasn’t ready to see his 20 years with Evgeni Malkin and Letang come to a close.

Malkin’s future in Pittsburgh beyond this season is unclear, so Monday could have been his last home game as a Penguin. Malkin will don a Pittsburgh uniform at least one more time, largely because Crosby took Game 5 over immediately.

He crushed Cam York into the boards in the opening minutes. He flew around to create chances for his line. Early in the second period, he hopped over the boards, snatched a Flyers clearing attempt out with his glove and dished a pass to Connor Dewar in open ice. Dewar rifled in his second goal in as many games to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead.

“The line before us had a really good shift and had them hemmed in,” Dewar said. “They were tired, and I just found a little bit of ice. Sid found me, and I had a little look at the net.”

From there, the game flipped on the Penguins. The Flyers answered 12 seconds after Dewar’s goal. Later in the period, a heavy shot from Ryan Shea hit Crosby directly on the left knee. He limped off the ice in serious pain and initially went down the tunnel toward the locker room.

He would return to the bench shortly after. But as he did, Philadelphia tied the game on an unfortunate bounce off Erik Karlsson’s stick.

The bounces would even out, though. Late in the second, at the end of Crosby’s first shift following the injury scare, he fired a pass to Letang at the point. The defenseman threw a shot off the glass behind the Flyers’ net. It caromed into goalie Dan Vladar’s leg and snuck past him for the winning goal.

“I’m a big believer [that] you earn your bounces … ,” Muse said. “If you’re working and you’re working to do the right things, that’s usually when the bounces go your way.”

Crosby was halfway over the boards when Letang’s goal miraculously trickled in.

“I just saw it laying around the goal line or just over it, so I didn’t really know how it got there. I was changing,” he said. “Happy to see it go in. Obviously, it’s a big goal after they tie it up there.”

If there were any doubts about Crosby’s health after the shot to the knee, he quashed them with a relentless closing stretch after the Flyers pulled Vladar. He said he felt good after the game.

Crosby is now tied for the series high with five points after consecutive multi-point games. He’s getting to his spots.

“They do a good job of clearing the front of the net, but the last couple games, we’ve had some opportunities there that maybe weren’t there early on,” Crosby said.

There is still another level he can reach. The Penguins’ top line of Crosby, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust has a 66% expected goals rate but just a 2-2 goal differential in their 5-on-5 ice time, per Natural Stat Trick. If they start converting their chances, Pittsburgh’s offense could take off.

“We’re continuing to build,” Rust said. “We’re finding some things that are working for us.”

Now, the series shifts back to Philadelphia for Game 6. The Penguins will continue their quest to become the fifth team in NHL history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit.

Crosby, Letang and Malkin have been here before. In a 2012 first-round series, they fell behind, 3-0, to the Flyers before rallying to force Game 6 — in which they were routed.

“Every series is new,” Crosby said when asked about the 2012 parallels. “You try to rely on experience to some extent, but it’s new groups, different situations. The last couple games, we’ve found our stride a bit. We should feel good about that, but with any series, you’ve got to get better with every game.”

He trusts in the resilience of this year’s team.

“That’s something that we’ve prided ourselves on all year,” Crosby said. “Throughout the season, we’ve been in different situations, and we’ve done a great job of handling adversity. Here, we’re faced with more, and that doesn’t get any easier.

“We know it’s a big challenge going into there, but we have a lot of belief in our group. We’ve done it time and time again, so we think we’ll do it again here.”

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