PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Cam York flicked a wrist shot for an overtime winner that ignited a Flyers' celebration 14 years in the making — through retread coaches, insignificant hockey and front office failings — when he slithered free from the mob of exuberant teammates and chucked his stick deep into the stands.
York watched it soar like the Schwarbombs routinely hit across the street, only no one was really sure in the moment where it landed.
“I hope everyone's OK,” York said with a laugh. “Definitely don't want a lawsuit. Just honestly blacked out. I didn't know what to do. I was so excited.”
How does one celebrate a Flyers' playoff series victory?
York reared back like he was going to fling a boomerang. Flyers fans blew horns and whistles around the concourse and belted out on repeat the opening “oh oh oh” of the White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army.” Flyers forward Christian Dvorak's celebration hit a little too hard — a cut busted open above his right eye during the victorious on-ice party and blood streamed down his cheek.
Like he went a few rounds in a fight.
More like six grueling games against Sidney Crosby and a Penguins team that has hoisted Stanley Cups and kicked their cross-state rival to the curb so many times over the last 15-plus years that the matchups often felt less like a heated rivalry and the Flyers treated more like a pesky speed bump in a long regular season.
Not this season. Not in Philadelphia.
Not even when the resurgent Penguins threatened to make a run at playoff history and storm back from a 3-0 series deficit and crush the spirit of a Flyers' team that became the NHL’s first to make the playoffs after being 10 points out of contention with 22 or fewer games remaining.
York and goalie Dan Vladar with his 42 saves had other plans.
The Flyers' 1-0 Game 6 overtime victory over the Penguins on Wednesday night served as early validation that general manager Danny Briere was astute in orchestrating an overdue rebuild and the payoff was a first playoff series win in a full NHL season since 2012. The Flyers accelerated their postseason timeline — in large part due to the late-season arrival of teen sensation Porter Martone — and are essentially playing with house money as they gear up for a second-round series with the top-seeded Carolina Hurricanes.
“We played a great series,” Flyers forward Travis Konecny said. “Now we get a chance to play again.”
Flyers coach Rick Tocchet and the rest of the players said to a man when they held a 3-0 series lead that Crosby and the veteran Penguins were too good, too playoff-tested to go down without a fight. Crosby was everywhere in Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory in Game 5 and had the Penguins believing that they could become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0.
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Vladar, a journeyman turned Olympian voted the team's MVP this season, turned away everything the Penguins threw at him much of the series. He had his first shutout of the season (with 27 saves) in Game 2, shook off an unspecified arm injury in Game 3 and put the Flyers on his back in Game 6 — getting the better of a fantastic Arturs Silovs — to steady a position long an albatross for the franchise since the Stanley Cup championship days of Bernie Parent.
All Vladar did was shut out the NHL’s third-highest scoring team during the regular season.
“There was never a doubt,” Vladar said. “Good things happen to good people, and we are good people here.”
Vladar also gave a nod to the odds the Flyers faced just to reach this point of the season and pointed out teammates wearing their good-luck gear.
The Flyers celebrated wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Parent's 1970s mask with sleeves that had “3.8 percent” printed on them as a nod to their slim postseason chances a couple months ago.
Vladar — the fifth goalie in franchise history with a series-clinching shutout — also made the fourth-most saves in a series-clinching shutout win over the past 70 years. The only goaltenders with more are Patrick Roy (63 in Game 4 of 1996 Stanley Cup Final), Andrei Vasilevskiy and Carey Price.
“danvladar you are a BAADDDDD man!!” former Phillies World Series champion Jimmy Rollins wrote on social media.
The Flyers were still feeling sky high well after the final horn.
As for York's stick? Well, it did stick the landing and was gleefully grabbed by a man wearing a white Flyers sweatshirt. He high-fived fans around him and boasted one heck of a postseason souvenir.
The Flyers can only hope there's so much more fun to come in May.
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
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