~STORY OF THE WEEK~
CANADIANS AND FLYERS ADVANCE

The players on the Philadelphia Flyers’ bench, which had been a dark place as they tumbled into a three-goal abyss in Game 7, suddenly jumped up and down, slamming their sticks against the boards. The Bruins had too many men on the ice, they shouted. The referees, too, had noticed. Handed a power play with nine minutes left, the Flyers did not let the chance slip away. Simon Gagne, a forward who missed the first three games of the series with a broken bone in his right foot, scored to lift Philadelphia to a stunning 4-3 victory and to a four-games-to-three Eastern Conference semifinal series victory Friday night at the TD Garden. “I don’t think anybody in that room feels we’ve accomplished anything yet,” said Chris Pronger, the 35-year-old Philadelphia defenseman. But this victory was special. The Flyers became the third team in Stanley Cup playoff history — the Toronto Maple Leafs (1942) and the Islanders (1975) were the others — to win a series after losing the first three games. It was fitting that Gagne played the hero. His goal at 12 minutes 52 seconds of the third period was his fourth since returning to the lineup on May 7. With the Flyers facing elimination in Game 4, Gagne scored in overtime. “He’s got a gift, and that gift helps us win hockey games,” said Peter Laviolette, who was hired as Philadelphia’s coach on Dec. 4 to lift an underachieving team. “And he’s doing it under the toughest of circumstances.” The Flyers, who finished the regular season with the seventh-best record in the conference, will host the eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 on Sunday. Inspired by a boisterous capacity crowd, most waving yellow towels, the Bruins took a 3-0 lead in the first 14:10 of the game. The first two goals were on power plays, handed to the Bruins because Scott Hartnell and Danny Briere were too rambunctious. “It was emotion, trying too hard,” Briere said. “We were crossing the line at the beginning of the game.” Milan Lucic scored his second goal of the game on a rush for a three-goal Bruins lead. The fans were delirious, turning up the volume of the din at the Garden. At that point, Laviolette called his only time out of the game and summoned his team to the bench. The focus of his message: just score one goal before the end of the period. At 17:12, Philadelphia scored on a shot by the rookie forward James van Riemsdyk that dribbled off his broken stick. The Bruins defenseman Mark Stuart got his stick on the puck, too, but it slipped under the pad of Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask — so slowly it barely hit the back of the net. No matter; it was van Riemsdyk’s first playoff goal. “Our mind-set was that if we were going to go down, we were going to go down swinging,” said Mike Richards, the Flyers’ captain. Philadelphia closed to 3-2 on Hartnell’s second goal of the playoffs. His linemate Ville Leino tried beating Rask with a spinning backhand, but Rask stopped the shot with his left pad. Hartnell charged toward the loose puck and whipped it into the far side of the goal at 2:49. The crowd began to buzz, nervously. Boston killed a hooking penalty on Marc Savard, but the Flyers had momentum. Briere tied the score at 9:39 when he carried the puck behind the goal at high speed, whirled, then stuffed the puck past Matt Hunwick and Rask. “We call him sneaky,” Hartnell said of Briere. “He’s sneaky around the net.” The Flyers regrouped around goaltender Michael Leighton — who had replaced the injured Brian Boucher in a Game 5 victory — and dominated the final two periods. With 8:45 left, the Bruins received the too-many-men penalty, an egregious error at such a critical point of the season. Two men hopped on the ice as one player hopped off. “They’re calling it throughout the whole playoffs, and we’ll leave it at that,” Boston Coach Claude Julien said. The communication among players, Julien said, had to be better than ever these days. There was a breakdown at one of the worst moments possible, and Boston’s collapse, which included losing a three-game lead and a three-goal Game 7 lead, was soon complete because of Gagne. “The team that won tonight deserved it,” Julien said. (NY Times)