PHILADELPHIA – So here was Larry Robinson yesterday afternoon demonstrating just how little he really knows about hockey.

“We have to be able to play at our peak,” the Devils’ coach was saying. “We have to be at our best.”

Well, then, how does this alleged expert explain Devils 4, Flyers 1 here yesterday, given that The Post has learned that the Devils hardly played their best hockey of the tournament here in the opener of the Eastern finals?

Actually, the lone significant question we had about the Devils going into Round 3 focused on their capacity to win a game in which

they didn’t play up to their standards, an ability necessary for any team to win 16 times in the tournament. Florida neither was good enough nor played well enough to pose a threat. Through the first five games, Toronto was just good enough to push the Devils, who somehow lost twice even though they had been outplayed in no more than two of the first 15 periods.

Yesterday, if the Devils weren’t necessarily outplayed by the Flyers in the first two periods, they surely didn’t look much like themselves. It wasn’t the pace of an opening period in which each team created numerous chances while raining 16 shots apiece on net. It wasn’t even that the Devils, who emerged from that opening period with a 3-1 edge, then sat back and asked Martin Brodeur to stop too many solid chances in the second, too many of them off odd-man rushes.

It was that the Devils weren’t acute on their changes, didn’t get the puck in deep often enough, couldn’t clear the puck on the first or even second try often enough. It was that the Devils at times even seemed careless.

“It wasn’t so much that we were trading chances; I just didn’t like some things,” Robinson observed. “[Bad] habits crept up from time to time.

“We haven’t gotten them out of our system.”

Haven’t gotten the bad habits that got Robbie Ftorek fired in March at the end of a 5-10-2 plunge out of his system, is what Robinson meant.

The Devils can skate with just about anybody and they can trade chances with just about anybody, too, whether people want to believe it or not. They don’t play that way simply because they’re not trained to play that way. In order to raise the Cup, a team must be able to win at any game, not just its own.

“We have the tools to play a different way than by holding a team to six shots,” said Bobby Holik, who even got a goal yesterday, his first in the playoffs in three years. “It shows we can be successful playing a different way.”

The Devils scored three first-period goals off pretty plays and off unscreened first shots that beat Brian Boucher. They moved the puck well while creating scads of open ice for themselves against a Flyer team that seemed clueless in its own end. This is the series in which Luke Richardson and Dan McGillis both meet reality. Petr Sykora was dancing, as was Scott Gomez.

“We have a lot of talented players and skaters,” said Scott Niedermayer, who opened the scoring but then was the culprit on the goal that got the Flyers even. “We have a lot of confidence in our ability to play an up-tempo game.”

Whether the Devils can thrive playing up-tempo hockey against Colorado’s elite offensive talent if the teams meet next month is problematic, but they’ll probably have to be able to win at least one shootout in the Finals in order to avoid being buried by the Avalanche.

But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. So back to yesterday.

Without Eric Lindros, the Flyers simply are not as formidable around the net, let alone anywhere on the ice, even if Keith Primeau and John LeClair give Philadelphia a much more robust game down low than either Florida or Toronto could present. But the Flyers at least tried to crash the crease, and at times were successful at it, even if unable to produce a notable number of second chances against Brodeur, who was quite busy taking shots and playing the puck on what by all accounts was a dreadful ice surface.

Vladimir Malakhov was very sturdy, turning in his best game yet as a Devil. Scott Stevens, who made certain to get a piece of Mark Recchi at every conceivable opportunity, was a presence. Randy McKay had his best game of the playoffs. And when Niedermayer scored at 0:58 of the first, it marked the fourth time in 11 playoff games the Devils scored within the opening two minutes. So they did some things well.

“Don’t hold us to the standard of holding Toronto to six shots,” Holik said. “We set a very high standard at the end of that series.”

Perhaps he might want to mention that to Robinson. But then, what does he know, anyway?