Esche is keeping first-round gem in perspective

Over and again after the Flyers had handed the defending Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils a first-round elimination yesterday with a 3-1 victory in Game 5 at the Wachovia Center, goalie Robert Esche said he was excited.

Just to make certain everyone knew how excited he really was, he told them it was pretty obvious.

Well, it wasn't.

Standing in the middle of the Flyers dressing room, the tools of his trade discarded, Esche was describing the most significant victory of his evolving career in a low monotone. His look of indifference was unmistakable. As a 26-year-old goalie who had never before played a lead role in a playoff series, he nonetheless spoke as if he had expected to make the Devils and the goalie who has led them to three Stanley Cup championships, Martin Brodeur, his first postseason victims.

In other words, he looked and sounded like the kind of calm, poised goalie who could help the Flyers make a long run in the most taxing tourney in professional sports. Oh, yes, by piggybacking yesterday's 31-save performance on top of his 35-save shutout in Wednesday's Game 4, Esche performed like that kind of goalie.

"When you have a goaltender playing like Eschey is right now, you feel like you can beat the world," Jeremy Roenick said.

Esche was the Flyers' X factor when the playoffs started. He had to be if only because of the simple fact that he had never before won a playoff series. Of course, he had never before been given the opportunity. So who knew?

And when Esche allowed a few goals from long distance toward the end of the regular season, it was understandable that some Flyers fans began to get the creeps. After all, Flyers goalies have sprung some memorable leaks in the postseason the last few years. When Esche stopped speaking to the media between games because someone in the media doubted his capability, suspicions grew that he might be unraveling.

Clearly, he wasn't.

"Nothing changed except maybe I stopped talking to the media. I just didn't want to think about anything except stopping the puck because in the end that's my job," he said.

No, Esche said, he felt no sense of vindication. No sense of relief. No more relaxed now that he had finally gotten his first playoff series win. No great sense of accomplishment because, as he said, "I'm sure no one here is looking to win just one series.

"The realistic thing is we really haven't accomplished much. We won in the first round last year, too. I don't want to downplay what we've accomplished, but you hope it's only the tip of the iceberg."

Of course, Flyers fans will be quite content to live with a goalie who reveals little of himself as long as he comes up big the way he did at crunch time yesterday.

After Brodeur had botched a long wrist shot by Danny Markov from just inside the blue line for the eventual winning goal with 5 minutes, 23 seconds remaining in the third period, Esche calmly turned away a couple of tough chances, one a tricky deflection by Erik Rasmussen.

"It's not like we didn't have any chances," said the Devils' Patrik Elias, who also had a dangerous shot turned aside by Esche late in the third period. "Their goalie played very well."

Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock, who kept talking up Esche even after general manager Bob Clarke signed Jeff Hackett in the off-season, said the goalie simply did what he thought he would do.

"He showed the same things he showed during the regular season," Hitchcock said. "He showed he can steal games, that he's a tremendous athlete, very competitive, and that he can stay in the moment."

Esche's biggest moment came when yesterday's game ended and he was pawed and head-bumped by his joyous teammates. He had proved he was capable of winning a playoff series, so he raised his arms in triumph.

"For a long time, I've been waiting to play in the playoffs," he said. "I didn't change anything. It's just that the saves are a little more important now."

Just a little.