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Kudos to the Philadelphia Flyers for battling to overcome an early 3-0 deficit last night to defeat the Boston Bruins 4-3, enabling them to complete a historic, epic comeback in the series. They became only the third team in NHL history to come back from a 3 games to none deficit and win the series. There were 2 factors that turned the series in the Flyers’ favor. The first was the injury to goaltender Brian Boucher, forcing backup Michael Leighton into the spotlight in the final 3 games. Leighton played just well enough to keep his team alive, but mostly the change in goal forced his teammates to tighten up their game defensively around him. The second factor was the return from injury of Simon Gagne, who wound up scoring 4 goals in the 4 games he played, all huge ones.  It will be a long, tough off-season in Boston after the Bruins blew both a 3-0 lead in games and a 3-0 lead in the final game. The Flyers’ surprising win sets up a strange pair of conference final series, with the Western Conference finals featuring the top 2 seeds – San Jose and Chicago, while the Eastern Finals will have the bottom 2 seeds in the Flyers and Montreal Canadiens. San Jose is attempting to wipe out a sorry history of being eliminated early in the playoffs after highly successful regular seasons, while Chicago has developed into a solid Stanley Cup contender after going fairly deep into the playoffs last year with a young team. In the East, the Canadiens have already knocked out the top regular season team in Washington and the defending Cup champion in Pittsburgh, and also have a history of coming out of nowhere to steal Stanley Cups in seasons when they weren’t expected to win. The Flyers also have a solid franchise with a winning history so this series should be a classic.