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Host Flyers topple ’Hawks in OT
Philadelphia Inquirer
philadelphia
Eight hours before Wednesday night’s opening face-off, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said his players were loose.
“I’m not sensing a lot of pressure,” he said.
That statement changed dramatically in the latter stages of Wednesday’s night’s dramatic Game 3 at the electric Wachovia Center.
The tension was thicker than Ville Leino’s playoff beard as the teams went into overtime locked in a 3-3 tie.
But Claude Giroux broke the suspense by tipping in a Matt Carle shot 5 minutes, 59 seconds into overtime, enabling the Flyers to climb back into the Stanley Cup Finals with a desperate 4-3 victory.
“We’re back in the game now,” Leino said. “This was a big confidence-builder for us.”
With 5:02 gone in overtime, Chicago goalie Antti Niemi smothered a shot by Simon Gagne that was about to cross the goal line. It was reviewed, and ruled no goal. (Jeff Carter put in the rebound, but it was after the whistle had blown.)
The win sliced the Blackhawks’ Finals lead to two games to one. Game 4 will be held Friday at the Wachovia Center.
It was the Flyers’ first Finals victory since 1987, ending a seven-game losing streak in championship series. It also snapped the Hawks’ seven-game road winning streak, which equaled an NHL playoff record.
The Flyers are 2-4 in overtime games in the Finals. Their only other win was in 1974, when Bobby Clarke’s goal — one of the most famous in franchise history — gave them a Game 2 victory in Boston en route to their first Cup.
The Flyers, rebounding from a pair of one-goal losses in Chicago, are 7-18 in series in which they trail, two games to one.
But that’s a lot better than the series record (1-6) when they fall into a 3-0 hole.
Climbing out once in this postseason was difficult enough.
Doing that against the Hawks would have been virtually impossible.
Chicago took a 3-2 lead when Patrick Kane beat Michael Leighton on a breakaway with 17 minutes, 10 seconds left in the third period.
But Leino answered 20 seconds later.