Thwarted by Antti Niemi, the Flyers landed in Philadelphia early this morning with a daunting, 2-0 series hole in the best-of-seven finals packed tightly in their equipment bags.
"This happened against the Boston Bruins,'' defenseman Kimmo Timonen said. "Now is not the time to panic. We've done this before. I think our third period was the best we've skated so far. That was us. That was our game. We didn't play it enough in the first two periods.''
Amazingly, the Flyers have not won a game in the finals since May 28, 1987, when J.J. Daigneault erupted the Spectrum in Game 6 against the Oilers. They lost Game 7 in Edmonton and were swept in four straight against Detroit in 1997.
That drought could end tomorrow night in Game 3 at the Wachovia Center.
"We haven't played our best yet,'' forward Claude Giroux said. "In the third period, we put more pressure on them. We wanted it. We wanted the puck more than them.''
The Flyers struggled gaining puck possession early in the first period. Despite back-and-forth action in the first 20 minutes, the Flyers made a conscious effort to not get into a track meet like Saturday's Game 1, which resulted in 11 goals.
Instead, they finished the first frame badly outnumbered in shots and scoring chances. After killing three penalties - including two in a span of 3 minutes - the Flyers went the final 13:36 of the period without a shot.
"Just because we're tightening up defensively doesn't mean no points, no offense,'' forward Danny Briere said. "I thought in the first two periods, we were way too conservative.''
