The path here is steep, quite obviously. The Flyers are down by two games to none and heading home for an evening in which there can be no more false steps. It is hard and it might be getting harder, depending on the medical people.

And Mike Richards still leads them.

The tougher it gets, the more obvious he becomes. He scored both of the Flyers' goals in their Game 1 loss to the Penguins, banging away and banging away some more on a night when his team really didn't play very well, when his team really struggled against this fine Pittsburgh machine.

Last night, in Game 2, it was another 4-2 loss. But in this one, Richards again led them - this time, shorthanded, unassisted, a goal at the end of the second period that tied the game at 2-2 and gave his flagging team one more injection of life.

That it was not enough is beside the point. Simply, this is an appreciation of how Richards is standing out amid the struggle. People don't tend to read stat lines in the NHL, but read this one: one goal, three shots, four hits, four blocked shots, 63 percent wins on faceoffs. He plays in a sport where reputations are made in the springtime, in victory and in defeat - and he is making his reputation, here and now.

Richards is making it as he picks up a puck that the Penguins' Evgeni Malkin mishandled, picking it up and blowing past Pens defenseman Sergei Gonchar and going in all alone on goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, going in and firing and not missing.

"I was just seeing where he was in the net," Richards said, in an interview broadcast by the CBC between the second and third periods. "I know he has a quick glove, but I saw an opening and I just tried for it."

Single-handedly, shorthandedly, Richards gave his team life. Alone, unassisted, Richards turned a game where his team still wasn't good enough into a game where his team still had hope.

It is a remarkable quality that some athletes have - rising above the adversity. It is about skill and it is about effort and it is about backbone - and nobody ever doubted Mike Richards in any of those categories, and nobody would think of doubting him now.

He will allow, quietly, "It's frustrating." But that is it as far as his obvious public disappointment will go. He is very clinical in his dissection of a hockey game, even a game as big as this one. There is no pretense, no false bravado.

Asked what has to improve for Game 3, he says: "Similar things to what we did tonight. We just need to play better and more consistent throughout the game. We still feel we can play a little bit better and get more consistent."

A few minutes later, he is asked the same question in a different way. The answer is the same answer, in pretty much the same way.

"We have to play more consistent, find that next level that we have, just play better," Richards said.

Just play better.

Simple.

That the Flyers might not be able to withstand the Penguins' onslaught if Braydon Coburn cannot return to this series is fairly obvious. Coburn's face was ripped up by a deflected puck 2 minutes into the game, a cut that reportedly required more than 50 stitches to close. To try to survive without your No. 1 (Kimmo Timonen, blood clot in foot) and No. 2 (Coburn) defensemen is borderline impossible at this time of year. That the Flyers did as well as they did last night was amazing.

"He's been a workhorse all year," Richards said of Coburn. "He's played so many minutes. He's so strong. He's big, he's fast. Obviously, you don't like to see one of your teammates go down like that."

Derian Hatcher played 28 minutes, 31 seconds in an attempt to fill the gap, a huge number of minutes for him. Hatcher received the controversial hooking penalty on Malkin that gave Pittsburgh the power play and led to the Penguins' second goal. It really didn't look like a penalty. It really looked like a guy playing defense.

"You're going to get me in trouble here," Richards said, laughing. "It is what it is. We have found ways to battle through it all year. We're not expecting anything, not expecting any help, and we'll go about our business."

And he will lead them. That much, even amid the Flyers' many disappointments, is obvious. *

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