The Flyers didn’t make the playoffs so we won’t have any games to relive, revisit or forget this April and May. However, there are a horde of Flyers playoff games that meant something, whether it was an individual player, to the team or the franchise itself. Here then is batch of games (each cherry-picked) from various eras and playoff rounds, some memorable for good reasons, some memorable for wrong reasons.
Round 2, Game 7
Flyers 4, Bruins 3 (May 14, 2010)
If you’re a Flyers fan, you hold onto memorable victories almost as much as you do the heartbreaking losses. Without recounting either of those highs and lows, there are some victories which could conceivably be more memorable for the simple fact they’ve happened a handful of times in the league’s history, not like the annual (but more cherished) Stanley Cup champion crowned. In 2010 the Flyers went to a shootout in the season finale to secure a playoff spot. After manhandling New Jersey in five games they faced off against the Boston Bruins.
The Bruins won the first three games, one in overtime, one a one-goal regulation win and Game 3, a 4-1 win over Philadelphia at Wachovia Center. Things looked bleak, but one play in the third game would play a huge role in the rest of the series. Flyers center Mike Richards nailed Bruins center David Krecji in the first period. The hit broke Krecji’s wrist and left Boston a lot less deep down the middle.
The Flyers won Game 4, Game 5, and Game 6, forcing a seventh game and trying to become the third team in NHL history to win a series after losing the first three. The Bruins’ play in the first mimicked the series to perfection, jumping out to a 3-0 lead (two power play goals and the third goal a shot by Milan Lucic that Flyers goalie Michael Leighton should’ve stopped). It looked like it was over just over 14 minutes in.
Flyers coach Peter Laviolette called a time out and didn’t rail on his resilient team but attempted to settle the group down, simply trying to get them to focus on scoring one goal. With three minutes to go in the first James van Riemsdyk got Philadelphia on the board with a shot that looked like a curling rock, inching its way beyond the goal line after deflecting off a stick and a skate. The Flyers were down two after 20 minutes but stopped the bleeding.
Minutes into the second the Flyers kept coming, this time Scott Hartnell scoring to make it a one-goal affair. And the Flyers, knowing the Bruins were reeling somewhat, applied more pressure. Just before the halfway point of regulation Danny Briere tied things up, seeing the puck bouce off Bruins defender Matt Hunwick and behind Tuukka Rask to make it 3-3. The goal took any air out of the Bruins fans as those watching on the scoreboards at Wachovia Center could probably be heard in Boston.
The rest of the second was rather even keel with the Flyers failing to score on the man advantage but not giving up too much in their own end. After 40 it was all tied up and the Flyers were on the cusp of either a heartbreaking elimination or their greatest comeback ever.
In the third period the Bruins took a too many men on the ice penalty. It was the same infraction that cost them huge back in the seventh game of the 1979 semifinals when Guy Lafleur tied the game late in the third on the power play and Montreal won it in overtime. The Flyers set up shop in Boston’s end. Mike Richards took a shot that first Simon Gagne then Ville Leino attempted to deflect but it bounced back to Gagne. Gagne buried the puck just inside the post up high and with that the Flyers led 4-3 with just over seven minutes to play.
The Bruins tried to tie the game late with Rask pulled but the Flyers did everything and anything to prevent that from happening. This included Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger essentially hogtying a Bruin in the slot with just under 10 seconds to go. The puck went back out to the neutral zone and it was over. The Flyers joined the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 Islanders in becoming the third team ever to stage a comeback down three games (Los Angeles became the fourth in 2014). As NESN play-by-play man (and noted Bruins homer) Jack Edwards quipped “the Philadelphia Flyers with a comeback that they will remember forever and the Boston Bruins a collapse they will never be able to forget.”
Although the Flyers would go onto the Stanley Cup Final against Chicago (and be a goal from sending it to a winner-take-all seventh game) this victory was probably the last memorable post-season series win Flyers fans have enjoyed. Some might argue the 2012 Flyers win over Pittsburgh but the Flyers weren’t facing elimination in the fourth game of that series. The Flyers would lose to Chicago in game six of the finals in 2010. The Bruins meanwhile would lick their wounds and go on to win the Stanley Cup the following season over Vancouver, blanking them 4-0 in the deciding seventh game.
As for Gagne, he would win the Stanley Cup in 2012 as a member of the Los Angeles Kings. He would also have brief stints with Tampa Bay and again with Philadelphia in the 2012-13 season before ending his career ironically enough with Boston in 2014-15.