History Has Been Made

Words fail me right now.

I honestly am yet to wrap my head around the fact that the Philadelphia Flyers have just completed a comeback that only 3 other teams in all of American professional sports have ever completed. I will run down the list again.

The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.
The 1975 New York Islanders.
The 2004 Boston Red Sox.
The 2010 Philadelphia Flyers.

Amazing. Unbelievable. Incredible. Wowzers. Insert your expression of amazed disbelief and it fits what just happened. I type this as I am texting my friend and I just told him it was "seriously stunningly awesome." Is that the best way to describe what happened tonight at TD Garden? And not only are they the 3rd hockey team to ever complete such a series comeback, but in the history of Game Sevens, only 2 teams have comeback from a 3-0 game deficit to win the game. Washington did it against Philadelphia in 1988 and Edmonton did it against Calgary 3 years later in 1991.

I guess the best way to go about this post is to tell you how I think this happened.

The Bruins and the Flyers are two similar hockey teams. That was not a secret coming in. They both play a similar hard-nosed, blue-collar style of hockey with similar types of players. In the first two games of the series, aside of a disastrous first period of Game 1 in which the Flyers were coming off of 9 days without playing, the Flyers proved to be the Bruins equal. The game, outside of that first period, was tightly contested and the Bruins pulled it out in overtime with a goal by Savard. The same can be said for Game 2, except there was no bad 1st period, the winning goal was scored by Milan Lucic, and it came in the dying minutes of regulation, not overtime. But through all the closeness, the Flyers never led in the series. Then in Game 3 they took a lead for the first time with Arron Asham scoring. What happened a few minutes later forever changed the course of this series.

Mike Richards laid a hard, but by all accounts, clean hit on David Krejci that broke his wrist and knocked him out for the series. The Bruins went on to score that play and would win that game convincingly by a score of 4-1, but, the Bruins were down their best player, and the Flyers were getting theirs back.

Enter Simon Gagne. Long labeled a playoff choker, he was coming off a Devils series that saw him have worse luck than cursed people. He hit the post at least 4 times and did not score a goal. His hard-luck series only got worst when he went out with a broken toe. But through the first 3 games, the one thing the Flyers missed was an extra forward with defensive responsibility. Laviolette had Briere trying to replace Gagne. Now Briere is a real good scorer, but he flat out sucks defensively. He was responsible for 3 of the 5 Bruins goals in Game 1. The return of Gagne, along with the elimination of Krejci, turned a close series favoring Boston, into something unprecedented.

The Flyers still needed to hang on to a lead and win though. Even with Gagne back, they still needed something. And after blowing it in the final minute of Game 4, Simon Gagne scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

The Flyers would not look back for Games 5 and Games 6, though there was one difference between the two. The Bruins did not show up for Game 5. They played very well in Game 6.

Then Game 7 started, and to say it was a microcosm of the series, is an understatement. If you gave Hollywood a script for this series and this comeback, they would have laughed out loud at you and say it was too corny.

The Bruins jumped up to an early 3-0 lead, most of them being weak goals on the part of Michael Leighton. Peter Laviolette then called the greatest timeout in the history of his career. The timeout settled the Bruins down and gave him the opportunity to give the Flyers a pep talk. As much as I think Andy Reid is one of the worst timeout callers in football, Peter Laviolette is one of the best timeout callers in hockey. He knows when to use the timeout so that his team can regroup and recover, and he used it to perfection tonight.

It worked almost instantly as late in the first period, James van Riemsdyk scored one of the ugliest goals I have ever seen. JVR is a 20-year old kid who has never played a schedule of more than 40 games in a season, and yet, he has been with the Flyers all year. Naturally, he played well to start the year, but he started wearing down and grew to be completely useless by the end of the season. This was his first goal of the playoffs, and frankly, when the rest of this team was down, JVR carried them through that first period and not with just that goal. He was the guy who wanted it the most out there.

The Flyers responded to that goal quickly in the 2nd, scoring 2 goals to tie it up at 3 before the game was even halfway through. The first of those 2 was Scott Hartnell, who is normally beyond useless and harmful to the team (and his idiocy showed in the way the Bruins got their 1st goal in this game), but for the past few games, has been serviceable and solid. That Scott Hartnell showed up for the 2nd. And then Briere tied it up.

Now here is where we were at. Marc Savard returned. The Bruins won the first 3 games after that. Simon Gagne returned. The Flyers won the first three games after that. The Bruins took a 3-0 lead in Game 7. The Flyers tied it at 3-3. It's been a complete microcosm of the series. Tied at 3 after 2. One period left. All this comeback shit has just been about tying it up. Now who wins it?

The answer:



Simon. Fucking. Gagne.

OMGagne.

History has been made.