Flyers win in overtime. A brilliant series ends in a suddenly quiet building. Game 7: Philadelphia 3, Washington 2 (OT)

It sure would have been fun to have the brilliant Alexander Ovechkin face the exciting Sidney Crosby in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but Philadelphia's Joffrey Lupul made sure that wasn’t going to happen.

Lupul scored the overtime winner on a power play Tuesday night and silenced a raucous crowd as the Philadelphia Flyers eliminated the Washington Capitals in seven games. The vast majority of those games were terrific to watch and one can understand why the Verizon Center got eerily quiet after Lupul started the Flyers' celebration.

With the win, the Flyers will face the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the playoffs while the New York Rangers will meet Sid the Kid and his Pittsburgh Penguins. Both should be good series, but as a hockey fan who doesn't care who wins or loses (yes, I'm still a die-hard Winnipeg Jets fan) I would have loved to have seen Alexander the Great against the wide-open Pens.

Be that as it may, Philly gets full marks for its victory. As close as the series was — and any series that goes seven games and has Game 7 go into overtime is about as close as it gets — Philly just seemed to be the tougher, grittier team. No argument, Ovechkin was spectacular in the series and he almost won the thing by himself, but ultimately, the Flyers ground it out and took advantage of a relatively rare overtime penalty, a penalty that was especially rare in a game in which there were no penalties in regulation after the 13:27 mark of the second period.

But as well as the Flyers played, it's hard to get excited about their chances against Montreal.  

After all, Philly lost all four meetings with the Canadiens this season. Which means the two teams Montreal will have faced in the first two rounds of the playoffs had a combined record of 0-12 against them this season.

Boston lasted seven games. The Flyers can only hope they last that long.  

Although, to be fair, Martin Biron kicked out 39 shots on Tuesday night and since it is the playoffs, goalies can carry marginal teams a lot farther than they should go. 

We'll have our second round selections tomorrow.

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Hockey lost a good friend yesterday.

For more than 20 years, Ed Chynoweth was the commissioner of the Canadian Hockey League. I first met him when I covered the old Winnipeg Warriors and he was always very nice to me. He was professional and could be hard-nosed if he had to be, but over all the years, I found him to be one of the nicest men I ever met in hockey.

He'd been battling cancer for awhile and we know he fought the good fight. 

Our condolences to the family and our condolences to the game of hockey. Ed Chynoweth will be missed.