Flyers won't go quietly, but they will go down

A few things have been apparent from the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs that began nearly six weeks ago.

No team has been fast enough to stay with the Blackhawks.

No team has understood the relentless nature of Jonathan Toews and a few of his mates.

No game with the Hawks is ever over, and no lead ever safe.

Perhaps most important, what has been missing from the opposition is desperation.

But that is about to change.

With the Sharks, you saw fury only from the likes of Patrick Marleau, Dan Boyle and Rob Blake - who was too old and slow to make a difference - but from the Eastern Conference champion Flyers you will see it all over the ice.

You want desperation? You've got it in Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Blair Betts, Claude Giroux, Ian Laperriere, Arron Asham, and, of course, the old monster Chris Pronger, who'll think nothing of removing body parts from any of the Hawks' young stars.

This is most likely Pronger's last shot at another Cup, and he won't leave anything in the tank. He may not move like he once did, but even at 35 and after the long and emotional Olympic tournament, Pronger is averaging a playoff-high 28:48 minutes per game.

Yes, he will be in charge of Dustin Byfuglien, but more than that he'll be in charge of keeping the shooting lanes open so that ex-Hawk Mike Leighton can see the puck.

Unlike the last two goalies the Hawks have faced, Leighton is not mentally soft. Despite some tremendous playoff numbers, Leighton isn't going to win any games on his own, but he's big, makes himself large in the net, plays the angles well, and is solid while unspectacular.

That description fits the Flyers nearly across the board: solid but unspectacular. However, unlike any of the teams the Hawks have seen lately, Philadelphia never quits, and the Flyers - much like the Hawks - believe they were destined to win it all.

What else could Philly think after all it's been through the last few months?

After a coaching change in early December, they have suffered injury after injury, gone through goaltender after goaltender, been pushed to the brink time after time, been pronounced dead more times than Elvis, and yet they live on to fight in the biggest series of them all.

They like to push the tempo, are very good defensively, and they have a couple blueliners, like Kimmo Timonen, who won't hesitate to jump in the play.

Look for the Hawks to take advantage of that and create odd-man breaks off bad pinches.

And look for the Hawks' depth to be the difference in this series, which is going to be tougher than the locals may believe.

They look at the Flyers and think they can't be all that great when they're a No. 7 seed and only made it into the playoffs with a victory in the final game of the regular season.

If taking it to the final contest wasn't scary enough, they were forced into overtime, and then into a shootout where Giroux beat the Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist for the winner. Another ex-Hawk goalie, Brian Boucher, stopped Olli Jokinen on the final attempt of the shootout.

After riding that wave and taking New Jersey 4-1 in the first round, they fell behind Boston 3-0 in the conference semis, and 3-0 in the first period of Game 7, before becoming the third team in NHL history - out of 162 - to win a series after trailing 3-0.

Then, they took out the hottest goalie in the league the last two months, Montreal's Jaroslav Halak, who had dispatched arguably the two best teams in the East, Washington and Pittsburgh.

So the Flyers won't care a bit that the Hawks will be prohibitive favorites in this series, with most expecting it to go the minimum.

But this is a team that will play physical and they won't go quietly or quickly.

The Flyers believe they can win - and they can if the Hawks fall into the trap of thinking they can mail in this one.

Joel Quenneville, however, is not going to let that happen.

He will remind them that they could have lost every game in the San Jose series, that it was much closer than the final series total, and that they won because of their effort, not only because of their talent.

Philly will produce a heck of a series, but ultimately the Hawks' speed and depth will be too much for the Flyers, whose story will be told as having come up one miracle short.

There can only be one team of destiny, and so I make it the Hawks in six.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.