How did they do it? Esche let it be done

Stick save, glove save, pad save...

Skate save, blocker save, butterfly save...

Standing-up save, falling-down save, on-your-head save...

Long-shot save, short-shot save, in-between-shot save...

Walking-on-your-knees save, poke save, oh-my-God-did-you-see-that save...

By every method known to hockey goaltending, the Flyers were saved yesterday. They were saved by the wondrous dexterity of Robert Esche, who was about as bulletproof as it is possible to be.

Trying to get the puck past him was like trying to jam a cannonball through a keyhole.

In the process, the Flyers won a close-out game, and what is most meaningful is that in their recent past, when confronted with a close-out game, what they tended to close was the car door on their fingers. Repeatedly.

But yesterday, they dispatched the New Jersey Devils, an old and honorable and greatly detested foe, and a continuing source of great angst to the locals, in what looked like and felt like an exorcism of sorts.

They swept the Devils aside, 3-1, in a game much more tense than the score, in a game precisely like the ones they used to lose with maddening regularity.

But there will be no embarrassing early elimination in the first round this time. No, now the Flyers are safely out of the first round of the playoffs, and in the process have discovered a starch in their spine that had been missing.

"We know we can reach back and dig in," coach Ken Hitchcock said.

Ah, but one series does not a Cup make.

"I don't believe this team is going to sit back and bask in what happened," Hitchcock said. "I don't believe this team is going to go away easy."

Most of this makeover is the work of the coach, who is unstinting in his demands, most notably in getting players accustomed to seeing their name in bright lights to dig some ditches, sublimate ego, play defense first, and worry about shots and goals later.

It is important to note that these were not the Devils we are accustomed to seeing. They are longer in tooth, they are missing their inspirational thunderclap-hitter Scott Stevens, and they are no longer equipped to play bang-the-body with the Flyers.

The opponent in the Flyers' heads might have been more formidable than the opponent on skates, though they bristled whenever that possibility was brought up.

It was a taut 1-1 game heading toward almost-certain overtime when Flyers defenseman Danny Markov gunned a slapshot past Martin Brodeur. The puck was traveling at roughly the speed of a Billy Wagner fastball - as measured by the fast radar gun, not the slow one.

Markov was perhaps 30 feet away, a distance and a shot that Brodeur usually inhales without effort. But this one, low and to the left, dipped past him, ricocheted off the post, and was in before he could even turn.

Brodeur is the best goalie in hockey, by acclamation. But in this five-game series, he was thoroughly outplayed by Esche. The irony, of course, is that Esche, having never started a playoff game, was regarded by many as shaky at best.

Well, in the final two games, he faced 67 shots. One got past him.

For the series, he made saves on 139 of 147 shots. In short, he stole the series. If anyone was going to do that, you assumed it would be Brodeur.

"We definitely didn't want to go back," Markov said.

He meant a return to the North Jersey bogs, the Devils' home. The Flyers would have had to make that drive today had they played to their form of the last few years.

But now they get rest instead, which is not all bad. Boston could be next. No bargain there, but if the Flyers play with the diligence they displayed against the Devils...

"The last two games, we showed something I haven't seen since I've been here," Jeremy Roenick said. "A lot of talent, a lot of power, a lot of grit. We just kept coming and coming and coming."

And so they did.

Hitchcock said: "I think this team showed, when it was really at an unbelievable gut-check pace, we went up another level."

Now all they have to do is duplicate that performance.

For another two months.