Danny Brière and the 2010 Flyers fondly remember playing for a playoff spot in Game 82

The Flyers wrapped up a loose practice with a little competition on Monday.

Divided into four groups based on jersey color, with white against orange and black against gray, players skated in one-on-ones against the goalies from the blue line. As Marc Staal skated in and beat Ivan Fedotov — finishing with flair as he stretched out his arms in a “are-you-not-entertained” way before appearing to put his “sword” back in its sheath and getting mobbed by his teammates — it made one think about 2010.

Was coach John Tortorella having flashbacks?

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Fourteen years ago, on the day before the Flyers played their last game of the season, then-coach Peter Laviolette made his group practice the shootout. He must have had a crystal ball tucked away in his office in Voorhees because in Game 82, a win-or-go-home matchup with Tortorella’s New York Rangers, the Flyers won 2-1 in a shootout at what was then the Wachovia Center.

“I remember coming in that practice day, and we watched video on Henrik Lundqvist, how he moved in and out on shootouts,” Flyers general manager Danny Brière, then a player with the team, recalled. “[He] asked us to pick a move and then practice it at the end of practice that day. And it happened, we ended up in a shootout.”

The Flyers were sitting pretty for a playoff spot that year but ended up going 7-10-3 after March 2, including a loss to the Rangers on April 9, that set up the grand finale.

“Disappointed we didn’t get the job done in New York in Game 81,” goalie Brian Boucher, who now calls the Flyers’ games on NBC Sports Philadelphia, said. “So pretty upset on the train ride home and thinking, ‘Man, hopefully we didn’t miss an opportunity here.’ But you regroup and get ready. ... You try to sleep as best you can the night before. There’s obvious butterflies and nervousness [and] you could say anxiety, too. We were a team that was expected to make the playoffs and the pressure was mounting.”

A veteran group that included the likes of Brière, Boucher, Chris Pronger, Simon Gagné, Ian Laperrière, and Kimmo Timonen, the Flyers were confident heading into the game. The barn was rocking with playoff-like vibes. But then future Flyer tough guy Jody Shelley scored to give the Blueshirts the lead in the opening frame.

“Well, it’s funny because Jody probably played his best two games as a New York Ranger in those back-to-back games, Games 81 and 82; he ended up signing a free-agent contract with us that summer,” winger Scott Hartnell, who also now covers the team on NBCSP, said with a chuckle. Shelley scored his only two goals of the season in the last two games.

“One of my favorite teammates to go along with as well, Jody was. But it was, we can’t lose. This team was, obviously, a good hockey team, but with their fourth-liner scoring, we were pretty fired up.”

Trailing 1-0 and facing Lundqvist with a playoff spot on the line is a tall task. After all, this was a Lundqvist who had already been a Vezina Trophy finalist as the NHL’s top goalie in three of his first four seasons. And, entering the game, the future Hall of Famer had gone 35-27-9 with a 2.41 goals-against average, .919 save percentage, and four shutouts in 72 games.

But this group was confident it could tie things up. As Brière said, there was no panic in the Orange and Black. Across the entire game, they poured 47 shots on goal but just needed one to squeak by “The King” to keep their playoff hopes alive. Finally, they did just that at 6 minutes, 54 seconds of the third period on a power play — and it was by a guy who, like Shelley, was not known for finding the back of the net often, defenseman Matt Carle.

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“It’s a good feeling at the moment but you’ve got to turn it off right away and get back to concentrating on the game,” said Brière, who got the secondary assist. “But it was definitely a relief that finally we got one past Lundqvist. And I felt even after that we kept the pressure on.”

Neither team could add another as Lundqvist and Boucher turned away every puck the rest of the way. After a scoreless overtime, it came down to a shootout. A number of the Flyers thought the Rangers were just playing well enough to get it to this point. And why not, they had Lundqvist in net.

”His reputation was that he’s one of the best in the league when it comes to shootouts. So I kind of knew when we went into the shootout I was like, ‘Uh oh, we might be in trouble,’” Timonen said. “But at the same time, I knew we had a really skillful lineup and skillful guys to shoot the shootout.”

Yep, the odds were not in the Flyers’ favor. Lundqvist holds the NHL’s No. 2 spot all-time with 61 shootout wins and posted a .722 winning percentage in the skills competition. In 2010, before that fateful game, he was 3-2 in shootouts but had allowed just five goals on 14 shots. And Boucher will be the first to tell you he wasn’t great in shootouts.

But like the Flyers, the Rangers were just .500 that season when it came to shootouts, so there was a chance.

“I knew I wasn’t shooting,” Hartnell said with a laugh. “My skates were probably untied. There’s probably a lot of shooters ahead of me, but you just cheer for your buddy, your teammate, the guy you went to war with all season long.”

Brière was up first.

“I still remember going on the ice for the shootout, thinking about, ‘Oh my God, this is it, we could be going home,’” he said. “... I remember I was about ready to go and I took an extra loop because I had to refocus, I had to change my mindset. I just didn’t have the right mindset going into it. I remember taking a little bit of a loop, refocusing thinking about — ‘OK, see the net, you know the move you want to make, you’ve seen him, you know what he’s going to do, so just focus on that.’”

In a “For Love of the Game” moment, Brière felt like he zoned out and the fans were almost nonexistent. He cannot recall if they were standing or sitting, if they were cheering, or if it was silent. And then he scored.

Next up was the Rangers’ Erik Christensen, who was stopped by Boucher. After Mike Richards was stoned by Lundqvist, P.A. Parenteau evened it up at 1-1. But then Claude Giroux scored to put the Flyers back in front.

It came down to Olli Jokinen versus Boucher.

“I knew nothing,” Boucher said about Jokinen’s shootout repertoire. “I saw him circling down at the other end and I never seen anybody do that and I was like, ‘What is this guy doing?’”

Jokinen skated around one of the circles at the other end to pick up steam before skating down on Boucher. He tried to go five-hole on the 6-foot-2 netminder.

“The last shooter was Olli Jokinen from Finland, I knew Olli pretty well and I kind of knew what he was going to try to do,” said Timonen. “And, luckily, Bouch was on top of his game and he was able to save it and it was a great moment.”

Boucher made the decisive save and tried to do the trademark Lundqvist celebration after he knocked out the Blueshirts — after being angry from watching him doing it after Game 81 — but fell at his first attempt.

“I wanted to do that celebration if we won and fortunately I was able to do it — although I didn’t pull it off in the fashion that I wanted to because I slipped,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what was going through my mind my mind was like, you know, ‘Take that Hank.’”

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The Flyers made the playoffs as the No. 7 seed and would go on a run that spring, all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they would fall in six games to Chicago.

“We had a lot of characters and a lot of guts and I think this team is proven that they’ve got guts, too. Hopefully, they can pull it off tomorrow,” Boucher said. “I mean, they’re going to need a lot more help than we ever needed; our game was simple — win and you’re in. Theirs is a little more complicated, but either way, it shakes out the way they’ve responded in the last few games, this is a group that you can be proud of.”