Matt Carle blog: No choice now

Flyers defenseman Matt Carle has blogged regularly, and exclusively, for the Daily News during the NHL playoffs.

Carle, 25, is in his fourth NHL season and his second as a Flyer. Carle captured two NCAA national titles in three seasons at the University of Denver, where he became the only junior defenseman to ever win hockey's Heisman Trophy, the Hobey Baker Award, in 2006. Carle is just one of 11 players in NHL history from Alaska and resides in Minnesota in the offseason.

Here is his latest entry:

I was pretty surprised to see Simon [Gagne] on the ice today. I never really knew the severity of the injury, but any time there is surgery involved, it's pretty serious. It's good to see him back out there. But it's that time of the year where guys go above and beyond to be a part of the team and to contribute.

I don't know if he is playing tomorrow or not – we'll see tomorrow – but it's good to see him moving in the right direction. It'd be a big boost to see a guy like Gaggy – who is a big leader on our team – to step up like that and get back in the lineup. It would be an added bonus to our team.

You never know what he would be able to bring to the table.

Unfortunately, I have been in a 3-0 hole before, when I was in my last year with San Jose [in 2008]. That year, in the second round, we were down 3-0 to the Dallas Stars and ended up losing the series in Game 6 in quadruple overtime.

It's never a position you'd like to see yourself in. It's kind of cliché but you need to take it one game at a time. You can't focus on being down 3-0, you need to look at each game as a chance to survive.

This is what the playoffs are about. I don't think you're ever going to see every game that is completely dominated by just one team – or a whole series. We've had our chances to win every game so far. We've played well at times in every game. That's what's hard – it's not like we've played particularly bad in any of the games.

We've just got to use that and try to get one tomorrow.

I'll probably get a good meal in tonight, catch a little bit of the Pittsburgh-Montreal game and lay low to focus on tomorrow.