As Aaron Lewis once said, “It’s been a while.” I think he was talking about overcoming drug addiction, but I’d like to apply his song title to Philly sports. It’s been a while since we’ve had a team in a game seven.

For the Sixers, you’d have to go back to 2012, the lockout-shortened season when Doug Collins’ squad upset the Derrick Rose-less Bulls in the 1st round, then took the Celtics to the wire in round two.

For the Flyers, it’s 2014, that first round exit against the New York Rangers.

Going back 15 years now, the Sixers and Flyers are 3-3 in game sevens, only one of which was played at home. Five were played on the road.

The list, after the jump:


2004: Lightning 4, Flyers 3

Eastern Conference Finals. The Flyers stole game two in Tampa, then gave home ice back to the Lightning with a 3-2 game four loss.

They couldn’t get the offense going in the finale, going down 2-0 before Kim Johnsson pulled a goal back, only to lose 2-1. Brad Richards had two assists and eight shots in the series. I also remember that former Flyer Ruslan Fedotenko was a pain in the ass, scoring six goals to lead Tampa. I remember feeling really annoyed by that at the time.

Anthony pointed this out:

“Flyers were obliterated with injuries (Sami Kapanen was playing defense) and that was the series Ken Hitchock and John Tortorella were sniping at each other the whole time (Shut Yer Yap!)”

2008: Flyers 4, Capitals 3

The Joffrey Lupul overtime rebound game.

Remember this?

Danny Briere was great in this series, scoring six goals and adding five assists. This was a big upset, since the Flyers were dreck the season prior.

2010: Flyers 4, Bruins 3

Who could forget?

They were down 3-0 in this series, then came back and ripped off wins of:

  • 5-4 (overtime)
  • 4-0 (in Boston)
  • 2-1
  • 4-3 (in Boston, after going down 3-0)

Certainly one of the greatest comebacks I’ve ever seen, erasing a 3-0 series lead, then coming back from 3-0 down in game seven. Mike Richards put that arm-breaking hit on David Krejci in game three. Some guys who were injured got healthy and provided reinforcement for Philly.

Danny Briere, of course, was again a machine. Even Ville Leino was rolling. Philly was truly on fire when the Flyers went on that playoff run. They even talked about ice hockey on sports radio, I swear to God.

2011: Flyers 4, Sabres 3

Kind of a strange series if I recall. The Flyers lost two games by a score of 1-0, then split a pair of high scoring overtime games before blasting Buffalo 5-2 in an anticlimactic game seven.

Claude Giroux had 8 assists in the series, and guess who led the Flyers in goal scoring? Yes, Danny Briere.

They got swept in the next round.

2012: Celtics 4, Sixers 3

The disappointing thing about this series is that the Sixers played super tough in Boston, stole game two, then gave home court right back to the Celtics with a 16-point game three loss. That was the “Kevin Garnett shoots 70% from the floor” game.

I remember game seven was pretty tight. The Sixers actually kept it close before losing by ten. Paul Pierce fouled out in the fourth quarter with the game in reach, then the Celtics went on a 14-7 run to close it out. I do recall that the Sixers didn’t shoot particularly well in the Garden, and now that I look at the box score… yep… they shot 35% in game seven and 5-18 from three, which is under 28%.

It was a solid effort from a team that wasn’t supposed to get past Chicago in the first round anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRX-Sle4s0k

2014: Rangers 4, Flyers 3

The Henrik Lundqvist series, if I recall. Man was he a royal pain in the ass. He allowed 14 goals on 172 shots for a save percentage of 91.9. In three of the Flyers’ four losses, they only managed one goal, and they scored 9 of their 14 goals in two of the seven games. It was sort of a “feast or famine” type of series.

Game seven was similar to the Tampa series from ten years earlier, just nothing doing on the offensive end. Jason Akeson and Daniel Carcillo actually scored in this game, which is bonkers.

2019: Sixers ???, Raptors ???

We’ll find out Sunday.

The Sixers have only played one game seven in the past 15 years, but in the run to the 2001 finals, Allen Iverson and company dispatched both Toronto and Milwaukee in seven, which is a cool nugget of information that people have pointed out this year. They’d need to beat the Raptors and Bucks again to reach the finals. Prior to that, the last game seven was in 1986, though the team did play some game do-or-die games when the NBA used to have best-of-five first round matchups.