Game 2 isn't an elimination game for Philadelphia, but the Flyers feel they must win it.
By TOM JONES
Published May 10, 2004
BRANDON - Marv Levy, the old Buffalo Bills coach, once was asked if his team was in a must-win situation. Levy shook his head and said, "No. World War II was a must win."
So, using the Levy scale, the Flyers are not in a must-win situation tonight for Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final against the Lightning. But after a loss in Game 1, Philadelphia has one skate in a hole and is trying to avoid putting the other on a banana peel.
Maybe it's not a must-win, but it's close. Call it We're-in-big-trouble-if-we-don't-win situation.
"We're going to look at this as a must win," Flyers forward Mark Recchi said. "We are going to look at this as a desperate game, as we do every night. This is the time of year where there are four teams left and we think of that every night now. So there's no situation that isn't a must-win game."
But there are games teams want to win and games teams must win to stay in a series. The Flyers could lose tonight and still rebound to win the series. Recchi, for example, was on a Penguins team in 1991 that lost the first two games of the conference final and rallied for four consecutive victories.
The Flyers, though, would rather not be two games in a hole.
A victory tonight would keep the buzzards from circling on the season. After all, a loss means the Flyers would have to win four out of five against a team it hasn't beaten in five tries this season.
"The sense of urgency from us has got to be tremendous," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said.
The discouraging part for the Flyers is they played desperate and well in Game 1. Maybe they didn't give their best performance, but it appeared good enough to win. On the other hand, the Lightning looked rusty for more than a period and was dominated for much of the game.
And still the Lightning won.
"Our problem was the things we did well in the first half of the game (we didn't) do in the second half," Hitchcock said. "We didn't do them well and some of it was what Tampa did, but also some of what we did. ... We only played 30 minutes of hockey against their team and they withstood that barrage and came back at us."
Hitchcock did see chinks in the Lightning's armor. The Lightning had turnovers, Hitchcock said, just as many as the Flyers had. It didn't show the speed everyone predicted. It looked, well, beatable.
So the Flyers aren't going to tear up their game plan. They aren't going to panic because they lost. They won't shake up their lines.
Hitchcock said they just need to be a little more tenacious, a tad more desperate. Forget about trying to beat red-hot Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and simply concentrate on playing good hockey.
It won't be easy, Hitchcock said. He thinks the Flyers should just plan on every game being 2-1 with maybe a few overtimes. And if they lose tonight, it's not curtains for the Flyers. Don't forget, the Flyers went up 2-0 on the Maple Leafs in the last round and the Leafs rallied to tie the series 2-2.
Tonight is just one game in a best-of-seven series. It's no more significant than Game 3, 5 or 7. Unless the Flyers lose, of course.
"If you don't win early in the series as a road team, then pressure starts to mount and that becomes another factor that comes into play," Hitchcock said.
"From our standpoint, I don't think we can go there. I think we have to put in an unbelievable 60-minute effort to beat this team and we have to be mentally prepared to do that. That's got to be our focus."
