Daily News Online Extra: Flyers looking to make a memory

Watching the size of the Flyers' overtime celebration on Sunday night, it was impossible not to read two very distinct emotions on their faces after Dan Carcillo scored the game-winner: joy and relief. They are two of the three emotions that rule this hockey season and every hockey season in the springtime: joy, relief, despair.
 
They are hoping to create the biggest celebration of all. They are one-eighth of the way there. You think about it like that and it is beyond sobering. (It is why the players do the one-game-at-a-time thing, because that way it doesn't seem so exhausting.) Brian Boucher has been fabulous in goal and he needs to be fabulous 14 more times. Mike Richards has led with his backbone in an impressive way and he needs to keep doing it for 3 1/2 more series. Carcillo scored the hero's goal and the Flyers need to manufacture a whole line of heroes if this is to end the way they all dream.
 
It is such a slog before you get to make a memory.
 
Getting home after writing a Flyers column at the Wachovia Center, I turned on the late game on Versus. It is what you do in April, as the hockey immersion seems to become total. Colorado and San Jose were scoreless into and then through the third period. Overtime, then -- and then it all happened so fast. In the first minute, San Jose defenseman Dan Boyle, trying to clear the puck to the safety of the area behind his goal, instead shot it into his own net by mistake.
 
The exuberance of the Flyers' celebration from hours earlier was contrasted by the pictures of Boyle's agony. As for the Avs, their celebration wasn't even in the camera frame because none of their players was in the camera frame when the goal was scored. The whole sequence dragged up a memory from a long time ago, a memory in two parts, despair and then joy.
 
In 1986, an Edmonton defenseman named Steve Smith, a rookie on his 23rd birthday, had one of those moments. The Oilers were playing the hated Calgary Flames in another installment of the Battle of Alberta. Back then, the playoffs were structured so that you had to play the first two rounds against rivals from within your division. Back then, men were men and the divisions were named after them -- so this was Game 7 of the Smythe Division finals and Steve Smith put one in his own net, banking it in off of the back of his goaltender, Grant Fuhr. It was crushing. Historians will tell you that, if not for that moment, the Oilers might have won five consecutive Stanley Cups.
 
Now, fast-forward a year. In the 1987 Finals, Edmonton beat the Flyers in seven wrenching games. Game 7 was at Northlands Coliseum, another great, tight game, and the Oilers won at the end. After the game, Flyers goaltender Ron Hextall, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, received his award in a little room under the stands. Meanwhile, on the ice, Oilers captain Wayne Gretzky authored one of the great celebration moments in Stanley Cup history.
 
It is the captain's job to choreograph the passing of the Cup from player to player. It is never totally planned or perfect, but there are people who are supposed to get it first based upon their stature and their accomplishments, and the captain's job is to try to aid in that recognition. On that Oilers team, you couldn't turn around without bumping into a future Hall of Famer, from Mark Messier on down, so there were plenty of choices.
 
So who did Gretzky hand the Cup to first?
 
Steve Smith.
 
To say that this gesture brought down the house would be to dishonor the cliche. Seriously: people wept.
 
I've been in the arena to see the Cup awarded about 10 times, and I've seen some good ones. I remember the time when Detroit coach Scotty Bowman pulled on a pair of skates so he could join in. I also remember the time when the Red Wings waited so that Vladimir Konstantinov, the defenseman who was paralyzed in a vehicle accident the year before, could join the celebration in his wheelchair. And when the Rangers finally won after a half-century in the wilderness, well, that might have been the most sustained loudness I have ever heard.
 
Still, the Steve Smith moment stands out. Thinking about it today, knowing that the 2010 moment is still weeks and weeks and weeks away from playing out, knowing that the Flyers and Devils are still two of 16 teams hoping that they might be the survivors, the whole thing seems so daunting. It must be why you remember, because it is so hard.
 
For the Flyers, they are only halfway past the Devils. Nothing is guaranteed yet, not nearly. The Flyers played a very strong Game 3 but it really has just begun. They imposed their will on the Devils, finally, but their lead is still only two games to one. If Carcillo had somehow missed that open net in overtime on Sunday night, given the way that Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur was playing, who knows what might have happened? It is why Richards -- who really made the winning play; Carcillo was the beneficiary -- would stand there after the game and say, "It was more of a relief, to tell you the truth."

Joy, despair, relief. Not even a week into the marathon, there are no certainties. Well, except for this: for the rest of the first round, I'm rooting for Dan Boyle and the San Jose Sharks.