Carle in for the grind, ‘no matter what’

He might not be “Matty Ice,” the name given to Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan. But, in his own quiet way, Flyers defenseman Matt Carle is just as critical to his team’s success.

Even if he often goes unnoticed.

“You try to fly under the radar at times,” said the 26-year-old Carle, who had 25 points prior to last night’s game in Florida. “But we don’t have any heroes on our team, certainly none on the back end.”

Maybe not. But if not for Carle’s power-play goal in last year’s regular season finale, tying the game 1-1 and leading to a shootout, their memorable postseason run never would’ve happened.

“It’s a goal that I’ll never forget, especially because of the run we went on,” Carle said. “I was just following the play up and it came to me. It would’ve made it that much better if we’d won it all last year.”

Now, with the Flyers having a deeper defense to take some of the load off veterans Chris Pronger and Kimmo Timonen, Carle hopes for a different result.

“We work as a cohesive unit, rather than three separate pairs,’’ said Carle, thanks to the addition of Andrej Meszaros and Sean O’Donnell. “This could help us stay fresher mentally and get rid of those nagging injury concerns if we get to June. But it’s gonna be a grind no matter what.’’