While his teammates attended a short meeting and enjoyed a day of rest after coming home from Montreal with a split of two games, Mike Knuble was tying his skates.

The injured Flyers forward is getting healthy and could play in Game 4 Wednesday night.

Admittedly, Knuble sees that as a big if, but if he is not ready for Wednesday he will be for Saturday, barring, of course, an unexpected setback.

"I feel better. Things improved a lot while we were up [in Montreal] Friday and Saturday," he said. "I skated for the first time Friday and it was so-so and pretty ginger out there and then I went out [Saturday] and it was a lot better, a marked difference. So there's progress."

Knuble tore his left hamstring in Game 5 in Washington during the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. He missed the last two games of the Washington series and the first two of the second round with Montreal.

But he is healing now, and with the 4-2 win Saturday night in the Bell Centre guaranteeing a Game 5, Knuble is planning to play more postseason hockey.

"[Tonight] is too early and Wednesday is questionable, but for sure after that," he said yesterday. "I haven't skated with any kind of pace for any kind of time and I haven't skated with the team, so I'd like to do that.

"[Wednesday] will be probably, some sort of judgment call by all of us. There's going to be pain or whatever but you don't want to go out and set yourself back another week when you could wait 2 more days and be OK."

The Flyers have been filling his role as the big body in front of the net, but having him back would be a boost.

"He's getting closer, but to put a timeline on it is one of those things," said coach John Stevens. "He's out there skating again [yesterday]. It's usually the next day when you see how he responds to getting pushed and getting a workout and see how his leg responds. But we were really surprised how quickly [Mike Richards'] leg came around and now [Knuble] seems to be going in the same direction.

"If we could get him back, the sooner the better. If he was able to get back Wednesday that would be great."

Nerves of steel

Marty Biron has been waiting his whole life to experience Stanley Cup hockey, and now that he has, the question put to him yesterday was, how is it different from regular-season play?

"I was way more nervous sitting on the bench [in Buffalo] or in the hallway in playoff hockey than I am on the ice, and I think everybody would say the same thing," he replied.

"You sit there and you have no control over the outcome and you get really nervous. You get jitters, but when you're on the ice and the game has started you feel like you control something and you're so focused on what you're going to do you don't have that feeling that you want to throw up.

"The thing about playoff hockey that amazes me all the time is how every play in a game has importance. It doesn't matter where the game is at, there is always a chance for a team to come back and take the lead.

"It doesn't matter if you're 3-1, the very next play could be the game difference. During the regular season you see these moments during a game where there is no action and you can kind of relax and see that we'll get out of this period and everything will be fine.

"Well, playoffs, even if there is 30 seconds left in the period, you have to be ready for anything."

Getting nastier

It won't necessarily hinge on the sucker punch Montreal winger Tom Kostopoulos threw at Kimmo Timonen, but this series is bound to get nastier.

"It will for sure," said Flyers winger Joffrey Lupul. "I don't know if it will because of that hit, but just the more you play a team the more you really start to dislike them. That kind of comes in every series.

"Now that we've played them a couple of times and we've gotten to know some of their players, that dislike is really starting to creep in on both teams; you can see it."

According to Lupul, the on-ice banter is increasing. Who is doing the most talking?

"We are," he said.

Bad news/good news

The Flyers are 1-9 in playoff games against the Canadiens in the 10 played on home ice.

However, those games were not played at the Wachovia Center; the last matchup was in 1989 at the Spectrum.

And R.J. stands for . . .

One of the big questions of the day among the visiting press was, what does the "R.J." in R.J. Umberger stand for? None of the hometown scribes or broadcasters in attendance yesterday knew the answer.

"Richard Allen Umberger Jr.," R.J. said. "Allen is my middle name but I'm a junior so that's where the 'J' comes from." *