HARTFORD — It all began with Ben Walter, and for all intents and purposes, it ended with him, too.

And in the time in between, what played out was as rousing a playoff game as the Providence Bruins have played in years, a 5-4, white-knuckle triumph over the Hartford Wolf Pack that sewed up their Atlantic Division semifinal series in the full seven games.

“We’ve been through a lot of adversity this year,” said Walter, who fired in three goals, each of which put Providence ahead. “We’ve been in a lot of tight games. We knew Hartford wasn’t going to quit. They were going to keep fighting to the end.”

Providence, which finished third in the Atlantic during the regular season, will now meet the division champion Manchester Monarchs in Round Two. That best-of-seven set begins tomorrow at Manchester, N.H.

The Monarchs won the eight-game, regular-season series between the two teams, 5-3.

“Just about every game we’ve played with them was low scoring,” said P-Bruin coach Scott Gordon. “Like us, they’re smaller and have speed. That’s how they generate most of their scoring chances is through their speed.”

The P-Bruins got to this point by winning three games on Hartford’s ice, including the final two in what were, for them, nothing less than do-or-die contests.

The P-Bruins are just the third team in the AHL’s 71-year history to capture a seven-game series by taking Games Six and Seven on the road.

“One thing we have in this room,” said team captain Jay Leach, “is a lot of character. It starts with the coaching staff, and trickles down to all the players. I don’t know if we had our ‘A’ game tonight. They definitely threw everything they had at us. But when we made mistakes, Hannu (Toivonen, P-Bruins goalie) was there. And we scored some goals.”

The P-Bruins were outshot, 44-21, including 17-5 in the final period, but Toivonen never allowed Hartford to get the go-ahead goal.

“He stood tall,” said Hartford coach Jim Schoenfeld.

Walter got Providence going with the first of his goals, which came on a penalty shot at 4:11 of the first period. It was awarded by referee Terry Koharski when Hartford defender David Liffiton closed his hand on the puck in the crease during a mad scramble in front of goalie Al Montoya.

“I just wanted to come down and maybe drop the shoulder to get him (Montoya) to bite on it,” Walter said. “I was kind of lucky to get it around him. He almost had me. It was pretty close.”

Nigel Dawes, Hartford’s leading scorer, tied it at 1-1 four minutes later on a power play, but Walter struck again at 11:17.

Taking a feed from David Krejci, Walter deked Montoya and poured in his third goal of the playoffs.

The P-Bruins took a two-goal lead at 5:57 of the second after some slick work around the net by Marco Rosa left Pascal Pelletier unguarded at the right post. Evading Pack defender Corey Potter, Rosa managed to slip the puck to Pelletier, who parked it in the cage.

Later, Providence successfully killed off an extended two-man disadvantage, but it couldn’t hold the lead.

Hartford rebounded to knot the score, 3-3, on goals by Liffition and rookie Alex Bourret. Bourret’s came at 3:46 of the third, when he deflected a shot by Dawes over the shoulder of Toivonen.

“They came back,” said rookie sniper T.J. Trevalyan, “but we just knew we had to keep playing the way we were playing.”

Leach said that there was no sense of panic found anywhere among the P-Bruins.

“Before we came out, we said that no matter what happens, we’ll just keep playing hard,” Leach said. “They were putting it to us, but we just kept coming.”

Providence took the lead for good on goals 62 seconds apart by Walter and Dennis Packard, whose score at 7:27 proved to be the game-winner, although Hartford managed to close to within a goal with 3:24 left.