Get ready for some playoff hockey!

I know that it is tough to even think about other sports when Roy Halladay’s arm and the Phillies’ bats are white hot, but it is mid-April, which means that 90 percent of my mind is occupied by two words: Playoff hockey!

Yes, that exclamation point is necessary because there is nothing better in sports than playoff hockey. Every shift, every odd-man rush, every black-and-blue earned on a blocked shot, and every borderline non-call by the referees could mean the difference between going home or hoisting the most storied trophy in all of sports.

If you are still on the fence about the thrilling six weeks that make up the playoffs, imagine the intensity of the Gold Medal game between the United States and Canada, except it happens every other night and involves a team that you have been rooting for your entire life.

And, amazingly, the Flyers, despite using five goalies (and dressing two more who never played), will be taking part in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and it took literally every second of the season, including an overtime and a shootout in the 82nd game to get there.

So despite sneaking into the playoffs with almost every scorer mired in a severe slump, and a goaltender who went 9-18-3 this season, could the Flyers actually make it beyond the first round, and in the process, provide us with more than just four games of playoff hockey?

Without any of the typical Philly bias that sneaks into these columns, the answer is a resounding yes!

I fully understand the Flyers barely made the playoffs, and that they have to face the Atlantic Division champions, but the Flyers can beat the Devils in a best-of-seven series. In fact, the Flyers won five out of the six meetings this season, including a 5-1 win over New Jersey on March 28, in which Brian Boucher stopped 32 out of 33 shots, and Martin Brodeur was pulled from the game after the second period.

While Brodeur is the best goalie in NHL history, the Flyers have gotten to him quite often this year. Despite his 2.24 goals against average (GAA) this season, Brodeur has been quite pedestrian against the Flyers, allowing 19 goals in six games.

I know that Boucher has a 2.76 GAA this season, and that I hold my breath every time he has to make a save, but he doesn’t have to outplay Brodeur by himself. With Chris Pronger, Matt Carle and Kimmo Timonen playing some of the best hockey of their careers, the Flyers’ defense can shield Boucher from needing to make the tough saves, which they have been able to do lately, as Boucher has held opponents to one goal or less in four of his last seven starts.

So how do the Flyers shut down the Devils’ offense? That task starts and ends with slowing Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk.

The Devils have a few players – Patrik Elias, Brian Rolston, and Dainius Zubris – who would worry me if it was 10 years ago, but only Kovalchuk and Parise need to be covered by the Pronger/Carle pairing, and hopefully the Flyers’ fourth line. Leading that fourth line is Blair Betts, who might have zeros on the stat sheet each game, but could be the difference in this series. If he can help hold Kovalchuk to a similar performance (1 goal, 1 assist) as the Rangers did in the 2007 playoffs, the Devils might not have enough scoring power to make even a stonewall performance by Brodeur matter.

On offense, Jeff Carter and his team-leading 33 goals are back in the lineup, and Simon Gagne, who I ripped two months ago for having just seven goals at the Olympic break, has scored 10 goals since then, and is playing excellent two-way hockey. While guys like Scott Hartnell, Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk are struggling this season, only the Capitals and Penguins scored more goals than the Flyers in the Eastern Conference.

Honestly, the Flyers may look like longshots, and according to some semi-illegal gambling Web sites, their 45-to-1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup are the second-worst of the 16 teams in the playoffs, but they might have all of the pieces necessary to make a run.

Their coach, Peter Laviolette, led the Carolina Hurricanes to a Stanley Cup and top-defenseman Chris Pronger always elevates his game this time of year, having led the eighth-seed Edmonton Oilers to the finals in 2006, and then winning the Stanley Cup with Anaheim in 2007. If the Flyers can get anything out of guys like Giroux and van Riemsdyk, this could be a dangerous team for the next six weeks.

Or they could get shut down by the best goalie in NHL history and be sent packing very quickly, but I choose to think positively.

Prediction: Flyers in six, but be prepared for a 6-1 loss at some point this series, because that is how the Flyers have been this season. They can play excellent hockey, but when they come out flat, they are simply terrible. Thankfully, it rarely carries over into the next game.