PHILADELPHIA -- Rest assured, the Flyers will exhume a 44-year-old video clip of Kate Smith to be played on the center ice scoreboard, then Lauren Hart will join along to belt out an impassioned rendition of "God Bless America" -- "our song," as they call it here -- while 19,543 clad in orange will go delirious.
It's one of the more stirring pre-game traditions in sports.
"It’s up there," Sidney Crosby was saying Saturday of the atmosphere at the Wells Fargo Center. "It gets pretty loud there."
What effect might the Flyers' good luck charm have on the Penguins? Going by recent history, probably none.
The Penguins went 2-0 at Philadelphia this season, outscoring the home team 10-3. In their last 23 regular-season games at the Wells Fargo Center, they went 15-6-2. Philly Flu? Hardly.
Jamie Oleksiak couldn't explain his success -- two of his four goals were at Philadelphia -- or his team's success in the City of Brotherly Love.
"I don’t know, it’s always an emotional game, it’s a game everyone gets up for," Oleksiak said. "I think we've got guys here that like to step up in big games like that."
Out of the 16 teams that qualified for this year's playoffs, only the Kings (49) had fewer home points than the Flyers (50) in the regular season.
"It’s going to be loud and tough to play in," said Olli Maatta. "But that’s part of the fun of playing in the playoffs is playing in different atmospheres."
1. Playing with a lead.
Feeling good about themselves after their Game 2 win at Pittsburgh, you can expect that the Flyers will make an early push to seize momentum and play to their crowd.
Of course the best way to quiet a boisterous -- OK, obnoxious -- crowd is to score early and take them out of it.
The team scoring first in this series has won the first two games. Bryan Rust scored what proved to be the winner just 2:38 into Game 1 as the Penguins took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission:
The Flyers are quite comfortable when playing with a lead like they did in Game 2 when they were able to settle into a 1-2-2 trap to protect it. Obviously, the Penguins have an explosive offense that can wipe out some sizable deficits, but they don't want to be chasing the game against the Flyers.
Philadelphia went 23-6-6 when scoring first and 12-1-5 when leading after the first period.
“There’s obviously going to be a bunch of momentum swings throughout the series,” Flyers forward Travis Konecny told reporters Saturday in Voorhees, N.J. “We just have to take advantage of ours right now. It’s probably a little bit better in our favor coming home here. We have a lot of momentum coming back with our fans. We just have to make sure we channel our energy the right way — not too high and not too low. Play that way.”
2. You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
The Penguins fired 35 shots on Brian Elliott who stopped all but one of them in Game 2. By no means was the Flyers goalie great -- Crosby missed an open net and the Penguins hit three posts -- but he was better than he was in Wednesday's series opener.
Even when he did make stops, Elliott looked shaky, fighting off the puck at times.
Though his team is averaging 34.0 shots per game in the postseason, slightly down from its 34.4 regular-season average, Mike Sullivan said on Saturday that he wants to see his team put even more pucks on net. He said the Penguins have been guilty of passing up too many shots, in all situations.
Against Elliott, no shot is a bad one.
During the regular season the Flyers were one of the league's stingier teams, allowing just 29.9 shots against per game.
3. Got to get to the front of the net.
Along with bottling up the NHL's top-ranked power play, one of the keys to Philadelphia's Game 2 win was their ability to take away the center of the ice from the Penguins.
Despite their 35 shots, the Penguins were relegated to the perimeter as the Flyers, protecting their lead, fell into a 1-2-2 (the Penguins have been known to do the same).
The Penguins' smaller forwards like Jake Guentzel and Conor Sheary were near-invisible for large parts of Friday's game. Sheary was eventually moved to the fourth line with Zach Aston-Reese moving up.
Aston-Reese's size and willingness to get to the net and play a physical game could be an asset against the Flyers. The Penguins did not show line combinations in practice Saturday but it wouldn't be surprising to see the rookie get more minutes in Game 3 after playing 13:39 on Friday. Sheary played just 8:15 in Game 2; only Tom Kuhnhackl played less.