Martin Brodeur turns 40 on Sunday and he knows there will be signs in the crowd reminding him.



"At least hopefully they'll be Jersey signs. Not Philly," he said with a laugh. "I might get them anyway, at least in warmups."



Brodeur downplayed his birthday, which comes one day after backup goalie Johan Hedberg turned 39.



"I don't pay much attention to these things. I think people around me do more than I do," Brodeur said. "I have my mom calling me for every single birthday so I don't forget. And my sisters, my brothers, almost my wife and my own kids.

"Last year I was in Florida. It was nice. You get to see your family. I'm home at least for tonight to see them. But I won't celebrate anything on my birthday until hopefully after the game."



He is looking for a gift.



"The obvious one is I'd love to beat the Flyers," he said.

Once again Brodeur addressed his future beyond this season. He thinks he has a few years left.



"I think so. I'm really enjoying this ride regardless of what happens in the next month or two months," he said. "I'm enjoying coming to the rink and playing hockey. I don't want to sit back and five years from now say, 'Oh, I should have played one more.' The decision on whether I'm going to go or nor will come later on, but as of now I'm enjoying myself. I'm really liking it."



Coach Pete DeBoer agrees Brodeur isn't done.



"From a guy that's in his 40s, he looks a lot better than I do," DeBoer said with a laugh. "A credit to him. It's amazing the level he's at, especially considering the number of games he's played. This guy hasn't been a 50-game-a-year guy. He's 70 or 80, plus playoffs. That's a lot of games on that body and he looks like he's not done yet. He's got some years left in him."

Brodeur was asked if he has done anything differently as he got older.

“I probably changed about five years ago as far as taking care of myself a little better, working out and doing stuff like that," he said. "But I got hurt more since I’ve been doing that, so I don’t know if that really works,” he said. “I just hope my talent and my knowledge of the game will bring me to the level I need to be. No big secret for me.”

He never could have guessed the success he'd have.

“I didn’t know if I was going to play one game,” he recalled. “I definitely feel very fortunate with everything that has happened to be and being able to compete at the highest level at my age And, knock on wood, being pretty healthy for most of the ride.”

His style of play has chajnged a bit.

“It had to change a little but as far as how I play around my crease. I’m not as aggressive as I used to be,” he said. “I still do a lot of things I did when I was younger. I still play the puck a lot, but I stay a little more patient and I sit back a little more because hockey is so different now. A lot of scoring chances are coming right from the goal mouth. If you challenge too much sometimes you get in trouble, I get caught once in a while. Just old habits. Kind of hard to shake off sometimes.”

* * *



Ilya Kovalchuk said his back felt good again today. He said he wasn't sure whether the Flyers were targeting his back in Game 3, but he was sure beforehand that he could handle the hits.



"It was a pretty physical game. But you don't want to go out there if you're not ready to take the hits," Kovalchuk noted.



"I don't think any doctor would let me go out there and play if I took one hit and I was done. I was sure I could play whatever they were going to bring."

Kovalchuk believes his injury problem is behind him.

“I really hope so. You never know. It’s a physical sport and anybody can get an injury,” Kovalchuk said. “It’s all about how you handle it and how you take care of yourself. You have to maybe rest a little more, sleep a little more and prepare yourself the best you can.”

The day off on Friday helped.

“Obviously he’s through to the other side of the injury, but the more you have to load it up and fatigue it, the more you’re playing with maybe re-injuring it," DeBoer said. "So it’s nice to get that rest.”

* * *

Rookie Adam Henrique may be the only teammate to kid Ryan Carter about his playoff mustache.



"Surprisingly, they haven't been on me about my mustache yet," Carter said. "I'm waiting. I have a couple of comebacks holstered."



Henrique said it looked like a mustache from the 1980s.



"Was he even born? He wasn't alive, was he? That punk," Carter said jokingly.



Henrique was born in 1990.



Zach Parise said of Carter's mustache: "It shouldn't be allowed. He should be thrown into jail with a mustache like that."

* * *

Kovalchuk on the Flyers changing lines in practice today: “It’s normal. Things didn’t go the way they wanted them to. We’ve done the same thing. We don’t really care what they do. We know how to play against them and what to do to be successful. They have the same faces. It’s not like they’re going to bring in a lot of new guys from somewhere. It doesn’t really matter who plays with who. It’s who wants it more.”