You can admit it, it's ok. Fifteen minutes into the game tonight, you thought the season was over, didn't you? The Flyers had come out in a big Game 7, after coming back from being down 0-3, and were getting blown out by the Boston Bruins. Two power play goals in the first ten minutes, along with Milan Lucic's second goal of the game had the Flyers down 3-0 and Boston was already starting to celebrate. After all the hard work to get back from the hole that they were in, the Flyers were going to flame out in a Game 7. It was typical Philadelphia sports, right? They lead you on, only to leave you painfully disappointed right at the end.
Then, something happened. Peter Laviolette, who took over for John Stevens midseason, called a timeout. Each team only gets a single timeout during an NHL game, so for a coach to take his only one midway through the first period is something that is rarely seen. However, it worked. Two minutes after the Bruins had taken a 3-0 lead, James van Riemsdyk scored his first career playoff goal. It wasn't a pretty goal, not at all, but it still counted the same, and the Flyers had life as the first period ended. Boston had controlled much of the first period in front of their home crowd, but there was something about the way the Flyers had played after that timeout. They looked like a different team. Suddenly, a 3-1 lead for the Bruins didn't seem that safe.
It didn't take long in the second period for that lead to start falling again. Scott Hartnell scored three minutes in on a backhand after Chris Pronger found a seam for a perfect pass into the Boston zone. Much like van Riemsdyk's goal, it wasn't pretty looking at all, but it still found the back of the net, and by this point, the Bruins were back on their heels. Everyone watching could feel it, and the Flyers seemed even more aggressive. Just six minutes later, Danny Briere came through once again with a wrap-around goal that bounced off of a Boston player into the net. Again, it wasn't a pretty goal by any definition, but somehow, someway, the Flyers had tied the game. Boston still couldn't get back into it, and it looked like the Flyers had taken the lead late in the second, but a close call was ruled to be a no-goal by the officials, so somehow, Philadelphia had done it again. After being down 0-3 in the series, they went down by three goals in Game 7...and came back again.
The Bruins had taken the first period, and the Flyers had clearly taken the second. Both teams came out looking for the one goal that would give them a lead in the third period. Both teams had chances, too. Chris Pronger took a shot that bounced off the inside of the post off of a faceoff, and the Bruins had two shots go off the post in the third. It seemed like the first team to make a mistake would be the one to lose the game.
Luckily for the Flyers, the Bruins decided to volunteer for that job. With just under nine minutes to play in the game, Boston was called for having too many men on the ice, a simple penalty that gave Philadelphia a man advantage late in the deciding game. For most of the series, the Flyers had struggled against the Boston penalty kill, and for much of this power play, nothing was different. Sure, the Flyers had their chances within the first minute, but Boston was playing so well in the defensive end that there was no way the Orange and Black were going to be able to score, right? Think again. With just 18 seconds left on the power play, Simon Gagne , the same man that won Game 4 in overtime and allowed this entire run to happen, slapped a shot past Tuukka Rask. Somehow, someway, this incredible run was now just seven and a half minutes away from continuing.
It was the longest seven and a half minutes of hockey ever. The Flyers played close to the vest, but not too close that they were allowing the Bruins to get easy shots. Every single player on the ice was doing his part to keep the clock moving, especially Claude Giroux, who battled three Bruins for almost 30 seconds to keep control of the puck in Boston territory. Nothing came out of it, but the Bruins lost precious seconds that they could have used to attack the net, and that's what matters. Rask was eventually pulled, and with 53 seconds to play, the Flyers had one last face off in their own zone. There were a few close calls, but the defense did its job, and time ran out, completing one of the most improbable comebacks in NHL history.
Only three other teams in sports have done what the Flyers did tonight, and none have done exactly what happened tonight. In the NHL, only the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders have come back from being down 0-3 in a series, but neither was down 3-0 in Game 7 just 15 minutes into the game, on the road. To come back from just that hole in the series, but to come back from that hole in this game made everything even more amazing. For Peter Laviolette to call his one timeout just 15 minutes into the game...it's something that is going to go down in Philadelphia sports history, the way he helped turn this team around not just in this game, but in this season. For much of the year, people have bashed the Flyers, myself included. We've said that this team didn't have heart, that the goalie situation would keep them from going far, that Simon Gagne and Danny Briere were finished and that this season was only going to end badly. I won't lie, I said all of those things at some point, especially when the Flyers tried their best to miss the playoffs at the end of the season. Remember, it took a shootout win against the New York Rangers on the last day of the regular season to even get Philadelphia into the playoffs.
Now, I'm happy to eat some crow. Without Simon Gagne and Danny Briere, this team doesn't make it out of the first round against the Devils, let alone this series against the Bruins. In any other season, the Flyers would have packed it up and given in when they dropped the first three games of this series. Not this year, though. That's thanks to players like Chris Pronger, who was brought in to do just what he's done in the playoffs, and Ian Laperriere, who was willing to block shots with his face in the third period of a game that was already well in hand, because he didn't want to risk letting the Devils back into the game, and Simon Gagne, who decided that a broken foot wasn't a good enough reason to miss the rest of the playoffs, even with one game between the Flyers and a golf course, and Brian Boucher, who had been blasted by everyone under the sun during the regular season, only for him to come back and play like an All Star and then get knocked out with an injury. To an even greater extent, it comes back to the head coach, Peter Laviolette. Without him behind the bench, I don't think this team is even close to where it is right now. Laviolette has brought a different attitude and feeling to this team that hasn't been there for years, and it feels right in Philadelphia. Honestly, I believe that without those players, and Laviolette, this season ends in Game 4 against the Bruins, if not earlier. I don't know where this season is going to end now, but it's not over yet.
To make things even better, the Flyers managed to earn home ice advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Montreal Canadiens. Game 1 is Sunday, in Philadelphia. Does anyone not think that they'll be playing "God Bless America" before the game?
No comments:
Post a Comment