It’s official. When next week’s playoffs begin, the Rangers will face the Flyers in the opening round. Mark Streit’s goal at 2:10 of overtime made Philadelphia a 4-3 winner over the Penguins.

It ended a chaotic game between the Pennsylvania rivals. The Flyers twice blew one-goal leads in the final six minutes of the third period. Nursing a 2-1 lead on the strength of a pair of Jakub Voracek goals, they allowed James Neal to tie it from Sidney Crosby with 5:07 left.

With it looking like overtime, Flyers captain Claude Giroux redirected a Voracek shot pass to put them back ahead 3-2 with 1:15 remaining. But just as Doc Emrick and Ed Olczyk were discussing the prospect of a Rangers/Flyers series, Pens’ defenseman Kris Letang was able to hustle to a loose puck in front and stuff home a backhand tying it once more at 19:23, sending it to OT.

A wild extra session that featured end to end rushes following some fireworks from Voracek and Tanner Glass at the end of regulation saw an unpredictable ending. Following a Ray Emery stop on Letang, Streit took an Andrew MacDonald feed and centered a pass which went right thru Marc-Andre Fleury’s wickets. If that wasn’t poetic given the Pens’ goalie’s recent playoff struggles, I don’t know what else to say. Good thing he’s not on our side.

Be that as it may, the Flyers overtime win guarantees the first playoff meeting against the Rangers since ’97. It was 17 years ago that they met in the Conference Final with Eric Lindros and the Legion Of Doom prevailing in five. It’s two decades later and the faces have changed. Henrik Lundqvist will be in for us. It’s not so certain for the Flyers, who lost Steve Mason to an injury. Emery didn’t exactly look sharp.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it doesn’t matter who plays for the Flyers when these teams meet. Ryan McDonaugh will return on Thursday for Game One. If he’s not 100 percent, uh oh. You know Philly will try to pummel him every chance they get. I’ll get more into the match-ups in another post.

Get your popcorn ready.