The Hurricanes looked like a team built for this stage because they are. And yet the Flyers never disappeared from the game.

That was the striking part of the night. They were undermanned, worn down, carrying injuries significant enough that Tocchet openly acknowledged them afterward, and they still dragged the game into overtime against one of the deepest and fastest teams left in the playoffs.

“I thought we had some guys tired,” Tocchet admitted. “We squeezed as much as we could. I can’t ask for more. We hung in there. [Carolina] is a good hockey team. They run all four lines; they were flying. We’ve got some guys banged up, broken ribs and all that sort of stuff. They gave it all.”

"We squeezed as much as we could" is an honest summary of the series, because by the end, the Flyers were running on conviction almost as much as execution.

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