The Phanatic Magazine
Although a season-opener is a time for hope and optimism, when questions from the off-season begin to formulate answers, it's tough to create instant and lasting memories when it's only Game One of 82 to kick off a long season.
Nonetheless, the Flyers have come up with a few memorable campaign commencers, for better or for worse, and I thought I'd recap 10 games with some kind of significance to officially kick off the NHL season.
FIVE OF THE BEST
October 7, 1995 - Flyers 7, Montreal 1 at Montreal Forum. Coming off a surprise finish during the lockout-shortened 1995 year, the Flyers opened the 1995-96 season at Montreal. The previous February, only two weeks following the blockbuster deal with the Habs which saw Mark Recchi exchanged for John LeClair, Eric Desjardins and Gilbert Dionne, Philly came into the venerable hockey hall and laid a 7-0 smackdown on the Canadiens. LeClair tormented his former mates with a hat trick and Ron Hextall posted an 18-save shutout.
Flash forward to October, and a hungry Flyers club began the year by racing out to a 6-0 lead before the midway point of regulation. LeClair, Rod Brind'Amour and Patrik Juhlin each had a goal and two assists while Hextall's lone blemish was a Recchi score in the second. Patrick Roy was tortured once again by Philadelphia in the loss, allowing five goals on 15 shots in just over 22 minutes of action.
The Flyers went on to begin the year unbeaten in six games and won all four meetings with the Canadiens including one more tilt at the Forum in mid-December en route to the Eastern Conference's best record.
October 9, 1986 - Flyers 2, Edmonton 1 at the Spectrum. It was an unenviable position to be placed in for 22-year-old Ron Hextall. Inserted into the lineup in lieu of last season's Vezina runner-up Bob Froese, for his NHL debut, with the lingering memory of Pelle Lindbergh thick in the air. Throw in for good measure that it was the 20th anniversary celebration for the franchise and the opponent was the two-time Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers who had posted the best record in the NHL the previous year.
Hextall's response was shaky at first, allowing the game's first goal on the first shot he faced, by sniper Jari Kurri.
However, third-period scores from Ron Sutter and Peter Zezel pushed the orange and black ahead to stay while Hextall did not allow a goal for the remainder of the contest, finishing with 21 saves. Philly ended October 8-2-0 while Hextall garnered rookie of the month honors for the season's first two months. We all know how things ended between the clubs in late May.
October 4, 2001 - Flyers 5, Florida 2 at First Union Center. The question was simple: how would new acquisition Jeremy Roenick fare in his first game in the city, under intense pressure to help deliver a championship-quality club?
The answer came just as easily, with the 12-year veteran posting a goal and two assists in the victory. Roenick delighted the crowd with his windmill celebration of a power play goal just before the midway point of the third period that gave the Flyers a solid three-goal edge. Justin Williams added two goals and a helper while Roman Cechmanek stopped 32-of-34 shots.
Despite solid contributions on both ends of the ice, Roenick was helpless and scoreless as the Flyers netted just two goals in a first-round five-game loss to Ottawa.
October 11, 1973 - Flyers 2, Toronto 0 at the Spectrum. In Fred Shero's second season behind the bench, the Flyers advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinal round where they lost to eventual champion Montreal in five games. Anticipation for the following season was met after Shero began his third year at the helm with a win, thanks to some Hall of Fame talent.
Terry Crisp tallied in the first period and Bill Barber wrapped up the game with a man-advantage score late in the contest. Bernie Parent turned in a 28-save night and earned first-star honors.
Kate Smith performed “God Bless America” for the first time live at the soon-to-be-razed arena and the Flyers responded with a victory. Parent added three more shutouts in the season's first 10 games as the Flyers shocked the hockey world by shooting to the top of the West Division and staying there despite a challenge from Chicago.
Just as the start of the season began with the opposition held scoreless, so did it end as Parent blanked the mighty Bruins to kick off a Stanley Cup celebration the likes of which this city still has yet to match.
October 5, 2000 - Flyers 6, Vancouver 3 at First Union Center. Even if they had lost, all the Flyers had to do to erase the ugliness of the previous year's double goose egg was to score once – which was accomplished in the first period alone – by Justin Williams in his first NHL appearance.
Williams added two assists while Eric Desjardins notched a pair of goals and Brian Boucher made 26 stops for the win. The decision was nowhere near a harbinger of things to come during one of the most turbulent seasons in club annals, which included a lengthy winless streak to end October, the firing of Craig Ramsay for Bill Barber, and a surge to a playoff spot which quickly crashed and burned.
FIVE OF THE WORST
October 2-7, 1999 - Ottawa 3, Flyers 0; Carolina 2, Flyers 0 at First Union Center. An unprecedented display of anti-offense which still defies description, the 1999-2000 Flyers roster which was virtually unchanged from the year before and featured no less than three former 40-goal scorers (Recchi, LeClair, Eric Lindros) managed to get blanked in each of their first two home games.
In the 32-year history of the franchise, they had only been held off the scoreboard twice and once at home for a season opener, but the two consecutive shutout defeats is something we hope will never be duplicated. The first step towards ignominy came courtesy of Patrick Lalime, who only needed to halt 17 shots in the first game, then Arturs Irbe followed suit with a 30-save performance against a hungrier but no less faltering home team.
Mark Recchi finally broke the streak of offensive ineptitude during Game 3 at Boston, leaving the team with a whopping 0.33 goals per contest through three matches.
It was just the tip of the iceberg as the club slogged through an 0-5-1 start to the year without Brind'Amour and Keith Jones and really didn't hit their stride until Christmas.
October 5, 1989 - New Jersey 6, Flyers 2 at the Spectrum. In what should have been a triumph over a club which finished in fifth place in the Patrick Division the year before, the Devils instead turned things upside down. Sylvain Turgeon registered a hat trick, Kirk Muller added three assists and soon-to-be consistent Flyer killer Chris Terreri stopped 38 shots.
The Flyers were missing Ron Hextall who had to serve the start of his 12-game suspension for attacking Chris Chelios, and much of their heart went with Dave Poulin who was rushed to the hospital mid-game with an abdominal injury suffered when he was kneed by a Devils assailant.
Mike Bullard and Rick Tocchet provided the only offense while Ken Wregget was shelled for all six tallies. It ushered in a new era within the division, as the Devils made the playoffs for the second time since moving from Colorado and the Flyers, who started the year 0-3, eventually slipped into a last-place finish.
October 11, 1967 - Oakland Seals 5, Flyers 1 at Oakland Coliseum. The first-ever NHL contest for one of the new six franchises ended with this dud.
Bill Sutherland provided the only offense for the orange and black, who were stymied by someone named Charlie Hodge. At the time, nobody could have imagined the wildly-divergent paths the two teams would take, but it's a serious downer to look back and see a four-goal loss to a team which changed names three times and was eventually folded into another desperate last-place club over a decade later.
October 10, 1974 - Los Angeles 5, Flyers 3 at the Spectrum. Fresh from a Stanley Cup triumph, Ed Snider thought it would be a great idea to display the fact that the Flyers were the champions of the NHL by sewing a commemorative patch on each player's left shoulder.
Instead, the hockey gods looked down upon the Quaker City with disfavor, and the Flyers laid an egg against a clearly inferior Los Angeles Kings team that didn't even have Marcel Dionne yet. The patches soon disappeared and with all things right in the hockey universe we saw a second consective Cup the following May.
October 5, 2006 - Pittsburgh 4, Flyers 0 at Mellon Arena. Only the first surprise in the worst season in franchise history.
Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 40 shots in the contest while Sidney Crosby, Maxime Ouellet, Josef Melichar and Jarkko Ruutu hit the net for Pittsburgh, which went on to a 7-0-1 record against Philly that season.
The Flyers began the year 1-6-1, and on Black Sunday October 22, blew up the front office and coaching staff. What followed was a season hardly worth discussing as it still remains in the dark corners of every fan's mind.
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