Pronger ready to get physical with Cup on horizon

Chris Pronger is the only player on the Flyers’ roster with a Stanley Cup ring. There’s a reason for that. When the games get more important, the veteran defenseman gets nastier.

Pronger helped lead Anaheim to the 2007 Stanely Cup. He’ll throw every inch of his 6-foot-6, 214-pound frame into getting back there and winning another one.

“It’s the hardest trophy in pro sports to win, with the physical attrition and mental attrition that happens in the playoffs,” Pronger said yesterday. “You’ve got to be prepared to do whatever it takes for what essentially boils down to two months.”

Pronger, voted the NHL’s dirtiest player by his peers last month in an ESPN poll, means it. He was suspended twice during his ’07 run. Flyers coach Peter Laviolette saw that intensity up-close when his Hurricanes beat Pronger’s Oilers in the ’06 Cup finals.

“You may not get them in Game 1. You may not get them in Game 2,” Pronger said. “But, hopefully by Game 5 or 6 the price that they have to pay to get to those tougher areas has taken its toll.”