Flyers beat Blackhawks, 5-3, to tie Stanley Cup finals

From Philadelphia — 

The Flyers made the playoffs in the weak Eastern Conference only by winning a shootout on the final day of the season. They didn’t lead the NHL in wins, points or any category that might have hinted at the resolve they have shown through an unlikely playoff journey.

Capitalizing on the Chicago Blackhawks’ fumbling defense to build an early lead and preserving it — if only barely — with selfless shot-blocking that made goalie Michael Leighton’s job easy until the third period, the Flyers clawed out a 5-3 victory Friday at the Wachovia Center that tied the Stanley Cup finals, 2-2.

Game 5 will be played Sunday at Chicago, where the Blackhawks won each of the first two games by a single goal.

The Flyers, in winning their seventh consecutive home game and improving their home playoff record to a league-best 9-1, guaranteed that they will play one more game at the Wachovia Center: Game 6, on Wednesday, when the Stanley Cup will be in the house because it might be won that night.

“I think the adversity we went through at the beginning of the year kind of set ourselves up for the playoffs,” Flyers captain Mike Richards said, recalling a saga in which injuries, inconsistency and occasional incompetence buried the team until a late push propelled Philadelphia into the playoffs.

“I’m not sure what it is, but no matter what time of the game it is, it just seems like we’re confident with the puck and we help each other out and play hockey.”

As opposed to whatever game the Blackhawks were playing. Maybe hot potato.

Defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson committed two ghastly giveaways that turned into Philadelphia goals, the first by Richards after an offensive-zone penalty by Tomas Kopecky had put the Flyers on the power play, and the second a poor pass that was intercepted and snapped home by Matt Carle to give the Flyers a 2-1 lead at 14:48 of the first period.

No sooner did the Blackhawks get one goal back, intercepting a Philadelphia clearing pass and finishing with a long shot by Patrick Sharp that was deflected, than the Flyers bounced back. Merely 51 seconds later, Claude Giroux took a perfect pass from Kimmo Timonen and was alone by the left post to flick it past Antti Niemi.

“We made some mistakes at the start and they capitalized,” Chicago defenseman Brent Sopel said. “When something like that happens, you need the other four guys to help out.”

Help was in precious little supply.

Ville Leino made it 4-1 at 6:43 of the third period on a shot that appeared to glance off Chicago defenseman Nick Boynton, and the Blackhawks had no answer.

Not until they got a two-man advantage could they produce their first power-play goal of the series, at 12:01, on Dave Bolland’s redirection of a shot by Duncan Keith.

When Brian Campbell lugged the puck up ice and threw it in front, where it bounced off someone’s skate to trim the Flyers’ lead to 4-3 at 15:50, things suddenly became interesting. Too interesting for the record crowd of 20,304, which stood for much of the final minutes and collectively exhaled when Jeff Carter scored into an empty net with 24.6 seconds left.

“I think we started thinking too much and stopped playing,” Giroux said. “The five on three obviously hurt us. ... It was close. We just have to learn from that.”

The Blackhawks have plenty to learn, starting with developing the kind of perseverance that is second nature to the Flyers. The Blackhawks’ top line of Dustin Byfuglien, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews again was stopped by the defense pair of Carle and Chris Pronger; Kane was minus-4 and Toews was minus-2, while Pronger was plus-4 with six hits and three blocked shots in 27 minutes 51 seconds on the ice.

“At the end of the game we had traffic at the net,” Chicago winger Marian Hossa said, “but at the beginning the goalie saw everything. We have to do a better job to get shots through traffic and at the goalie.”

Which comes down, again, to heart and the stuff that can’t be measured.

“It’s zero-zero now,” Flyers forward Ian Laperriere said. “Whoever wins two games is now going to have that big Cup.

“We need to win one game in their building. It might as well be the next one.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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