NHL PLAYOFFS

Flyers take Game 2 against Penguins.

PITTSBURGH — With fewer than 13 minutes to play in Game 2 and white towels waving furiously from the largest crowd ever to watch a hockey game at Consol Energy Center, Philadelphia’s favourite mythical character, Rocky Balboa, was featured on the scoreboard that hangs over centre ice.

“It ain’t about how hard ya hit,” Balboa said. “It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

For this Flyers team, there seems to be no punch too powerful.

On Friday night, the Flyers repeatedly absorbed Pittsburgh’s biggest blows. Each successive punch — and goal — was supposed to be bigger than the previous one. But the Flyers never recoiled.

And in the end, it was Flyers 8, Penguins 5.

“We find a way to win,” the Flyers Max Talbot said. “It was nice to come here and win the first two games.”

Instead of folding, the Flyers rallied — again — from four deficits, 2-0, 3-1, 4-3 and 5-4 — with a furious push that made Wednesday night’s Game 1 come-frombehind win blush. Jaromir Jagr finally put the Flyers in front for good with the game winner in an exhausting, everything-on-the-ice effort.

Rookie Sean Couturier, who scored just 13 goals all season, led the way for the Flyers with a hat trick. Claude Giroux gave the Flyers a second hat trick with an empty-netter with 6.9 seconds to play and ended the night with six points.

Somehow, the heavy underdog Flyers packed up and left Pittsburgh with an unbelievable lead of two games to none lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final prize fight.

Game 2 featured just about everything — from highlight-reel saves, to momentum-swinging penalty kills to bone-crunching hits to the 13 collective goals — you could ask of a playoff hockey game. The only thing missing was an overtime script.

Amazingly, Jagr’s goal with 10 minutes, 47 seconds left in the third period gave the Flyers their first regulation lead of the series. Jake Voracek’s Game 1 overtime marker was the Flyers’ only lead in Game 1.

Unlike the Penguins, the Flyers protected their scant edge like a rare, national treasure.