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Rich Hofmann: Flyers' Carle understands 3-0 hole

THE QUESTION was about pressure, and how it might shift in a significant way toward the Boston Bruins if the Flyers can find a way to beat them tonight in Game 5 of their playoff series.

"I don't think we want to get too far ahead of ourselves," Matt Carle said. (Yong Kim/Staff file photo)
"I don't think we want to get too far ahead of ourselves," Matt Carle said. (Yong Kim/Staff file photo)Read more

THE QUESTION was about pressure, and how it might shift in a significant way toward the Boston Bruins if the Flyers can find a way to beat them tonight in Game 5 of their playoff series.

With wisdom beyond his 25 years, Flyers defenseman Matt Carle slammed on the conversational brakes and said, "I don't think we want to get too far ahead of ourselves."

Because Carle has been there before, a member of a team trying to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a playoff series. He played for the 2007-08 San Jose Sharks, the team that has made the best run at a comeback in 35 years. That year, the Sharks lost the first three against Dallas, won the next two and then made it to the fourth overtime of Game 6 before finally losing.

And, as Carle said, "We would have been a very confident group. We had Game 7 back in our building. But that was a couple of years ago now, and woulda, coulda, shoulda."

NHL history says that the Flyers had a 1 percent chance of coming back from a 3-0 deficit. Now that it is 3-1, they have about a 9 percent chance. So there is no real need for any parade-planning at this point.

The last team to pull this off was the 1975 Islanders, in the conference semifinals. The last team to lose the first three and extend the series before losing in seven games was also the 1975 Islanders, in the very next series against the Flyers. And that's it.

Since the Islanders pulled the comeback, by my reckoning (margin for error: plus or minus, uh, something), there have been 109 best-of-seven NHL series where one team won the first three games. All of them came up short, and of those 109:

* 72 ended in four games (66 percent);

* 30 ended in five games (27.5 percent);

* six ended in six games (5.5 percent);

* one ended in seven games (1 percent).

So, other than the Islanders, Carle's San Jose team came the closest. The Sharks were a No. 2 seed that year, Dallas a No. 5 seed. Two of the first three games were won by the Stars in overtime, suggesting a similar pattern to the Flyers-Bruins series this year, where the Flyers have honestly believed that they had an opportunity to win any of the first three games (and especially Game 3).

"What I remember is, you get down 3-0 and you look back and you think, 'That happened quick,' " Carle said. "You kind of scratch your head and wonder how it happened. It's the same thing this year. You're not in shock, but it's tough because I don't think we played particularly bad in any game this year, except for maybe the start of Game 1."

Carle also said, "We just took it a game at a time. As we won each game, it was, 'Now we're only down 3-1 . . . Now we're only down 3-2.' It's the way you have to approach it. From 3-1, you have seen teams do it. In the last round, Montreal came back against Washington when they were down 3-1. You've seen it happen already this year in the playoffs. That's our task. Pick up another game, it's 3-2."

It is the time-honored approach - game at a time, shift at a time, ad nauseum. What else can you really do? This year, if a Flyers player or coach made any kind of great or memorable speech before Friday night's Game 4 victory, nobody is yet aware of it. Carle - who had four assists in that overtime win and really played well - said that he did not remember any particularly fiery oratory in 2008, either.

But he did remember coach Ron Wilson attempting to work a little numerology into the conversation.

"I just remember our coach bringing up some statistics," Carle said. "It's happened twice in NHL history [1942 Maple Leafs, '75 Islanders]. The first time, it was 33 years apart. That year, we were right in line with that, 33 years apart. I remember our coach saying that the stars were aligned and we're ready to go and this is the year it's going to happen. That's the only thing I really remember.

"Obviously, the Game 6 when we lost was devastating, four overtimes. That'll be a game I will never forget."

But that was then. Here and now, Carle is playing extra minutes and he is thriving.

"It's been like that all year," he said. "The more you play, the more comfortable you feel."

He has benefited from playing alongside Chris Pronger, and no one would dispute that. But he is quietly becoming a more and more effective player. Because of Pronger's immense [and deserved] shadow, "Nobody ever talks about [Carle]," said his coach, Peter Laviolette. But they way they use him tells you everything you need to know, and they will use him plenty again tonight in Boston.

TD Garden is the place where elimination again looms for the Flyers. Now we will begin to see, with Carle, with all of them, if they are simply throwing spitballs at history or if this can be the start of something more.

Send e-mail to hofmanr@phillynews.com,

or read his blog, The Idle Rich,

at http://go.philly.com/theidlerich.

For recent columns go to http://go.philly.com/hofmann.