Flyers taking comebacks to an art form - Boston Herald

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Flyers taking comebacks to an art form - Boston Herald Apr 14th 2012, 11:24 PITTSBURGH — Right next to the word "resilient" in your favorite online dictionary, there should be a team photo of the Flyers. Re-sil-ient: "Adj. Marked by the ability to recover. See the wildly entertaining hockey team from Philadelphia. Frequently falls behind. Frequently battles back to win. See first two games of the hard-to-believe Eastern Conference quarterfinals in Pittsburgh." The Flyers fell behind the Penguins on Friday night, 2-0 and 3-1. They tied it at 4-4 in the closing seconds of the second period before allowing a goal 64 seconds into the third. Just 17 seconds later, they tied it. Naturally. When it was over and Sean Couturier's coming-out party had enabled the Flyers to stun the Penguins (again), 8-5, the visitors' horrible first period was a distant memory. Still, the Flyers might make it easier on themselves — and prevent a lot of agita throughout the Philadelphia area — if they could avoid giving opponents a head start. "We had two choices — quit or fight to the end," said goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, adding he's never been on a more resilient team. Maybe coach Peter Laviolette should call his timeout at the 10-second mark to get the Flyers out of their early-game lethargy. Or maybe the Flyers should load up on Maxwell House, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull before they skate onto the ice to start a game. Clearly, they need to do something different, because, for a team that is among the NHL's elite, their starts have bordered on the ludicrous. They got off to another nasty beginning Friday, but somehow survived and took a two-games-to-none lead. In Game 1, the Flyers fell into a 3-0 first-period hole but, miraculously, rallied for a 4-3 overtime win. "We're playing with fire," winger Scott Hartnell said about the slow starts. On Friday, there were more flames. Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby scored 15 seconds after the opening face-off, marking the 12th time in the last 14 games the Flyers had surrendered the first goal. It was the quickest goal the Flyers had ever allowed in a playoff game, topping a goal scored 21 seconds into a 1971 game by Chicago's Jim Pappin, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. ©2012 The Philadelphia Inquirer Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.philly.com Distributed by MCT Information Services This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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