PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers are big boys. They didn’t cry when a good, young defenseman, Dmitri Tertyshny, was killed in a summertime boating accident or when coach Roger Neilson was diagnosed in December with an incurable cancer.
They didn’t cower when they went into the playoffs for a second straight year without Eric Lindros, refused to get political when he criticized the training staff for a misdiagnosis of a concussion and was stripped of his captaincy by a management that no longer can stand the sight of its best player.
The Flyers didn’t flinch about being lured into a Dominik Hasek first-round booby trap, the not-so-grand prize for overtaking the Devils for the Eastern Conference title. They didn’t become discouraged when they lost the first two games of their second-round series to Pittsburgh, nor mesmerized when Jaromir Jagr, the best player in the game, singlehandedly wiped out 2-0 and 3-2 deficits in Game 3.
They stared down their NHL-record eight straight playoff sudden death losses and finally won one that night, then didn’t give in to the walking death of five overtimes in Game 4, turning the series their way.
But all that turned out only to be basic training for last night’s real test, being staked down in the Devils’ dungeon at 3-1 in the second period, the pendulum swinging ever closer to the 2-0 series deficit that this time was going to slice the Flyers in half for good. “What’s [the Devils’] record being with a lead going into the third period?” asked winger Rick Tocchet. “Something like 60-1?
“I mean, we all play never to die, but 3-1 against Jersey is the game they never lose.”
The Devils both threw this one away, 4-3, or Tocchet, a 36-year-old throwback came back and took it, like he did a shower of hundreds of caps for a bogus hat trick, none of which he was obligated to throw back after credit for the game winner was changed to Daymond Langkow. The only head covering proving appropriate for the occasion should have been a long and pointy one for the Devils, who had been in total control of the game, but not ultimately of themselves.
“Everybody is talking that they are head and shoulders above us and guys took that personally,” said Tocchet. “New Jersey is a great organization but they haven’t done much [in the playoffs] the last four or five years.
“I’m not trying to sound disrespectful, but they’re struggling to make a name for themselves to go to the Stanley Cup Finals, just like us. And it just seemed like everybody had written us off.”
A minute into the third period, Keith Primeau put the brakes on behind the net, fooling Ken Daneyko, and Tocchet tapped in the passout. Keith Jones then stripped Scott Niedermayer at center and sent away Langkow, while Tocchet was going to net like it was his last chance to win the Cup.
He ran over Colin White, who tumbled into Martin Brodeur after the pick skipped in, just like Tocchet, traded away from here in 1992 after fueling two Flyer runs to the finals in the ’80s, wanted to skip all the way back from Phoenix when the Flyers reacquired him from Phoenix in March for Mikael Renberg.
“How many chances do I have left?” asked Tocchet. “If I’m in Phoenix, I’m playing golf. Here we have a chance to do something special and this team is special. I don’t care what happens from here on in. Every day, it’s something new.”
The Devils are deeper, more experienced in goal, more mobile on defense, quicker in transition. But Mark Recchi, John LeClair and Desjardins are among the top 25 players in the NHL, and Primeau’s big and hard to control. And if Tocchet, who had looked every bit his age until last night, has his hands back for a few games, the Flyers have regenerated a second scoring line and a lifeline perhaps to Lindros, who hopes to be ready by Game 6.
“Who knows if we’re going to win the series, but this gets us back in the frame of mind we can beat them,” said Tocchet.
It was a win the Flyers could frame, for sure, as pictured by GM Bob Clarke when he brought an old warhorse home. “It was a character performance by a character player,” said coach Craig Ramsay. “Rick was determined tonight. Our whole team played gritty, hard.”
And survived, like the survivors the Flyers are.