As the night bled into the morning and the excruciating minutes piled up, the Flyers had to joke around.
"Just trying to stay sane," Mark Recchi recalled.
The Flyers somehow found a way to do that 25 years ago when they delivered an unforgettable, 2-1 five-overtime victory over the Penguins in Game 4 of the 2000 Eastern Conference semifinals.
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SIGN UP HERE Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of that historic, sleep-depriving playoff win. Brian Boucher was the Flyers' goaltender and made 57 saves in 151:48 minutes.
"I don't think I would ever want to do that ever again," Boucher said in an interview on SportsNet Central. "It was mentally and emotionally draining."
The Flyers kept things light at each intermission.
"That dressing room never got quiet," Recchi said. "We were fine, at the end we were joking, everybody's starving, thirsty, wanting some food. Everything was closed, it's 1 a.m., you couldn't get pizzas anymore, you couldn't get anything. It just got humorous. Guys were having fun with it and enjoying it."
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Boucher said some players would randomly shout in the locker room: "Somebody end this thing!"
Thankfully for the Flyers, Keith Primeau was the one to do it.
You can relive the five-overtime victory in the video above, our second piece on the 25th anniversary. Here was the first. NBC Sports Philadelphia will have more Flyers flashbacks coming up on SportsNet Central, which airs from 6-10 a.m. every weekday.