Daily News Online Extra: For Flyers, already the greatest comeback in city's history

The Flyers have survived more elimination games in the last week (three) than the Phillies have in the last 28 seasons (two).

Just to put this into a little bit of perspective.

Whatever happens from here, this is already the greatest post-season comeback in Philadelphia sports history.

I know, I know -- if they don't win the last one, Game 7 on Friday night in Boston, it won't really matter. That is true enough, and it was the unanimous mantra coming out of the Flyers' dressing room after their Game 6 victory on Wednesday night. For people who root for the Flyers, and for history, that was the evening's best sign. (The worst sign: that the Bruins outplayed the Flyers in the second and third periods.)

One more win and the Flyers get their name inscribed, not on the Stanley Cup, but on the greatest short list in sports: teams that have come back from 0-3 to win a seven-game playoff series. We can recite them in our sleep now: 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, 1975 New York Islanders, 2004 Boston Red Sox. If you cannot win the whole thing, this might just be the greatest playoff accomplishment that there is.

That no Philadelphia team has ever done it goes without saying. But in the history of professional sports in this town, no team has ever even come back from a 3-1 deficit in a series to win.

Eight times in the NBA, a team has come back from 3-1 -- but never the Sixers.

Twelve times in baseball, a team has come back from 3-1 -- but never the Phillies.

Twenty-two times in the NHL, a team has come back from 3-1 -- but never the Flyers.

In fact, Philadelphia has had more than its share of being on the wrong end of one of those 3-1 comebacks. The Sixers coughed it up twice, both to the Boston Celtics, in 1981 and 1968.

As for the Flyers, they also have done it twice. Everybody remembers 2000, when they blew a 3-1 lead to the New Jersey Devils amid the Eric Lindros follies. Less well-remembered was 1988, when they collapsed against the Washington Capitals in a first-round series. In that one, goaltender Ron Hextall -- the defending Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP in 1987 -- suddenly, shockingly, couldn't stop a beach ball after Game 4. Mike Keenan was fired right after the series ended -- for a lot more complicated reasons than a single playoff loss -- and Paul Holmgren replaced him as coach.

Twenty-two years later, Holmgren is the general manager and the Flyers are on the historical home stretch. If they don't get there, most people will end up seeing it as nothing more than a blip, a chimera, a what-if that taunts everyone from the record books.

But if you lived it for the last week, and you are able to retain any kind of memory of the last week, and you have a sense of the history of this place, your feelings might be a little different. Because we really have never seen anything like this before.