Al Michaels' famous end-of-game words from 1980 never get old.
"Do you believe in miracles?"
Slight pause, for effect.
"Yesssss!"
That became the catchphrase of the Miracle on Ice, Team USA's stunning win over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics.
You could use the same words to describe the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders, the only two teams in NHL history to win a playoff series after losing the first three games.
All of which brings us to the 2010 Flyers, believers that they can make it an NHL threesome, that Friday's electric 5-4 overtime triumph over the Boston Bruins - won on a goal by a player who moved on crutches, not skates, earlier in the week - was just the first step toward a legendary comeback.
Truth be told, the Flyers were stunned to lose the first three games of this Eastern Conference semifinal.
They talked about "bad bounces" and how they could have won the first three games with "a break here or there." They talked about how they fired 71 shots (35 on goal) compared with Boston's 31 (20 on goal) and still lost Game 3. They talked about how their luck was about to even out.
"It's not like we were getting outplayed," gimpy left winger Simon Gagne said after playing through the pain of a still-healing broken foot and depositing the overtime goal Friday that triggered a wild on-ice celebration - and gave the Flyers a few more breaths.
This series, which has Boston holding a lead of three games to one, probably deserves to be tied at 2-2, based on the play of the skaters. But Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, despite some rough moments in Game 4, has clearly been the series' best goalie and is the main reason the Bruins are still in command.
Can the Flyers ace the rest of their games and join the '42 Leafs and '75 Isles as the poster teams for resiliency?
Only if there's a perfect storm:
Goalie Brian Boucher regains the form he displayed in the first round against New Jersey.
The power play, 0 for 10 in the last three games, produces like it did in the regular season (21.4 percent success rate, third in the NHL). Suggestion: Move defenseman Chris Pronger down low on some power-play chances, like in the series against the Devils.
The top two defensive pairings don't collapse from fatigue - and the third duo of Ryan Parent and Lukas Krajicek starts performing better.
The Flyers start getting some scoring from guys like Darroll Powe, James van Riemsdyk, and Scott Hartnell.
Ah, Hartnell. He almost seems like a cartoon character, with his shaggy hair and his constant flopping on the ice. For whatever reason, his skills have deteriorated greatly. He has gone from a 30-goal scorer last season to a 14-goal scorer this season.
But Hartnell, goal-less in his last 21 games, finally showed positive signs Friday. He had an assist - alertly kicking the puck to Claude Giroux for a tap-in - and was plus-2 in his best game of the playoffs. By far.
Which brings us back to our question: Are the Flyers capable of becoming the third team to do the unthinkable?
The optimistic view: The Bruins are just the type of team that can blow a 3-0 series lead. This, after all, is a team that lost 10 straight at one point in the season - and lost 10 in a row at home at another juncture. They scored the second-fewest goals in the NHL this season, and their attack has been weakened by season-ending injuries to two of their top forwards, Marco Sturm and David Krejci.
Oh, and maybe Mark Recchi will start acting his age (42) and not Sidney Crosby's (22).
The negative view: The Bruins, who have a 16-0 franchise record when they start a series with three wins, are 5-0 during home playoff games this year, and they feed off the energy of their very loud building. Two of the next three games, if needed, will be at TD Garden.
It should also be noted that the Bruins have had players step forward in the playoffs to replace their injured teammates, filling the offensive void.
After a gimpy Gagne extended the series with hockey's version of Kirk Gibson's famous home run - "You showed a lot of guts," club chairman Ed Snider told him after he exchanged high-fives in the locker room - the Flyers talked about how the pressure was now on the Bruins.
It was hyperbole, of course. The pressure is clearly on the Flyers, because if they lose they go home for four months.
But if the Flyers can find a way to win Monday in Boston, the Bruins will start feeling the heat - and the ghosts of the '42 Red Wings and '75 Penguins. Those are the teams that blew a 3-0 series lead.
With each Bruins loss, the pressure "shifts a little to them because they're supposed to close the deal," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. "The longer the series goes when you're up, the more it becomes more of a burden."
And so, yes, Laviolette believes in the words that made Al Michaels famous.
He has no choice.
"Do you believe in miracles?"
Slight pause, for effect.
"Yesssss!"
That became the catchphrase of the Miracle on Ice, Team USA's stunning win over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics.
You could use the same words to describe the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders, the only two teams in NHL history to win a playoff series after losing the first three games.
All of which brings us to the 2010 Flyers, believers that they can make it an NHL threesome, that Friday's electric 5-4 overtime triumph over the Boston Bruins - won on a goal by a player who moved on crutches, not skates, earlier in the week - was just the first step toward a legendary comeback.
Truth be told, the Flyers were stunned to lose the first three games of this Eastern Conference semifinal.
They talked about "bad bounces" and how they could have won the first three games with "a break here or there." They talked about how they fired 71 shots (35 on goal) compared with Boston's 31 (20 on goal) and still lost Game 3. They talked about how their luck was about to even out.
"It's not like we were getting outplayed," gimpy left winger Simon Gagne said after playing through the pain of a still-healing broken foot and depositing the overtime goal Friday that triggered a wild on-ice celebration - and gave the Flyers a few more breaths.
This series, which has Boston holding a lead of three games to one, probably deserves to be tied at 2-2, based on the play of the skaters. But Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, despite some rough moments in Game 4, has clearly been the series' best goalie and is the main reason the Bruins are still in command.
Can the Flyers ace the rest of their games and join the '42 Leafs and '75 Isles as the poster teams for resiliency?
Only if there's a perfect storm:
Goalie Brian Boucher regains the form he displayed in the first round against New Jersey.
The power play, 0 for 10 in the last three games, produces like it did in the regular season (21.4 percent success rate, third in the NHL). Suggestion: Move defenseman Chris Pronger down low on some power-play chances, like in the series against the Devils.
The top two defensive pairings don't collapse from fatigue - and the third duo of Ryan Parent and Lukas Krajicek starts performing better.
The Flyers start getting some scoring from guys like Darroll Powe, James van Riemsdyk, and Scott Hartnell.
Ah, Hartnell. He almost seems like a cartoon character, with his shaggy hair and his constant flopping on the ice. For whatever reason, his skills have deteriorated greatly. He has gone from a 30-goal scorer last season to a 14-goal scorer this season.
But Hartnell, goal-less in his last 21 games, finally showed positive signs Friday. He had an assist - alertly kicking the puck to Claude Giroux for a tap-in - and was plus-2 in his best game of the playoffs. By far.
Which brings us back to our question: Are the Flyers capable of becoming the third team to do the unthinkable?
The optimistic view: The Bruins are just the type of team that can blow a 3-0 series lead. This, after all, is a team that lost 10 straight at one point in the season - and lost 10 in a row at home at another juncture. They scored the second-fewest goals in the NHL this season, and their attack has been weakened by season-ending injuries to two of their top forwards, Marco Sturm and David Krejci.
Oh, and maybe Mark Recchi will start acting his age (42) and not Sidney Crosby's (22).
The negative view: The Bruins, who have a 16-0 franchise record when they start a series with three wins, are 5-0 during home playoff games this year, and they feed off the energy of their very loud building. Two of the next three games, if needed, will be at TD Garden.
It should also be noted that the Bruins have had players step forward in the playoffs to replace their injured teammates, filling the offensive void.
After a gimpy Gagne extended the series with hockey's version of Kirk Gibson's famous home run - "You showed a lot of guts," club chairman Ed Snider told him after he exchanged high-fives in the locker room - the Flyers talked about how the pressure was now on the Bruins.
It was hyperbole, of course. The pressure is clearly on the Flyers, because if they lose they go home for four months.
But if the Flyers can find a way to win Monday in Boston, the Bruins will start feeling the heat - and the ghosts of the '42 Red Wings and '75 Penguins. Those are the teams that blew a 3-0 series lead.
With each Bruins loss, the pressure "shifts a little to them because they're supposed to close the deal," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. "The longer the series goes when you're up, the more it becomes more of a burden."
And so, yes, Laviolette believes in the words that made Al Michaels famous.
He has no choice.
