by Bob Herpen
On a Sunday night eight days before Christmas, when almost a dozen possible Hall of Fame players suited up between the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins in a key conference matchup at the Spectrum, it was the less likely lads who came through for the victorious hosts.
Rookie defenseman Chris Therien pumped home a pair of first-period goals – his first and, as it turns out, only two-goal game in the NHL – while Rod Brind’Amour netted the winner with 2:22 left in regulation as Philly outlasted their rivals, 6-5.
It was their 49th shot of the game, to 38 for the other side.
“I had a few chances, fanned a couple of times,” Rod the Bod said to the Daily News. “I just kept saying ‘I need one more.’”
The incensed visitors who couldn’t wipe out the winning goal, tried in vain to argue that the puck on a tying goal from Eric Desjardins with 7:10 to play had illegally been kicked in by Joel Otto in front of Pens goaltender Ken Wregget.
“Everybody was asking about it, family, friends,” the 1993 Cup winner told hockey beat Les Bowen about his first tally of the season after racking up 16 assists. “It was a good time to get one.”
Heading into the holidays, the Flyers were locked in a three-way battle for first place in the Atlantic Division with the resurgent New York Rangers and upstart Florida Panthers. Ahead of that thrilla in So. Philla against the Northeast Division leaders, Terry Murray’s club reeled off wins in 11 of their previous 13 games overall, including 8 of their last 9 at the Spectrum dating to mid-November.
Since a tie at Washington on Nov. 14 left them at 9-6-4, six points behind las Panteras for the division lead, the Orange and Black had only made up 2 points of that difference. Following a 4-2 win in their final visit to the venerable Montreal Forum, they were sitting at 20-8-4, still four points back of the division lead.
The Pens, meanwhile, were third in the East with 43 points and just dared every opponent to outscore them. Period by period. Game to game.
With the arrival of a fresh and healthy Mario Lemieux to a lineup already featuring flamethrowers Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis and Tomas Sandstrom up front with Sergei Zubov and Larry Murphy on the back end, then new arrivals Brian Smolinski and Petr Nedved, the offensive potential was explosive. Once the puck dropped on the season, that potential was fully realized.
Through 29 previous games, Pittsburgh led the NHL in total goals (146), goals per game (5.03), while sporting a power-play percentage hovering near 50% at home and 30% overall. Not since the Edmonton Oilers 10 years prior had a club finished the season above 5 goals-per-game.
By this juncture of the season, Mario’s maulers scored 10 once, 9 twice, 8 once and 7 on five occasions. They won games by 10 (vs. Tampa on Nov. 1), by 8 (at San Jose on Nov. 10), and by 6 twice (at Ottawa on Nov. 8, vs. Hartford on Dec. 9).
In 25 appearances, Lemieux rolled to 28 goals and 42 assists. For Jagr, it was 26 goals and 35 assists in 29 contests. Captain Ron was in a dry spell, relatively speaking, only picking up 15 scores and 37 apples over 29 games.
Defensively – in no small part because their offense and puck-possession was through the roof, the Pens ranked 8th overall in total goals allowed (89) and 10th in goals per game surrendered (3.06).
Six weeks earlier, they laid a beating on the Flyers at the Civic Arena in Eric Lindros’ first full game absent with a knee injury, striking early and often in a 7-4 rout, which boosted Pitt’s home record against Philly to 9 wins and 4 ties since the end of the 1990-91 season.
This would be the first of two cracks the Flyers had against the Penguins in their last season calling the Spectrum home. It was clear they had to score their way out and prevent just enough – one fewer – to win the night.
In the early stages of a relatively healthy career year, Lindros entered play with a rather pedestrian 20 red lights and 20 helpers across 25 appearances. His Legion of Doom linemates Mikael Renberg and John LeClair posted a combined 75 points, with Johnny Vermont at this juncture leading the club with 41 points while not missing a game.
The hosts punched and counterpunched, up 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 after one period and extended the edge to 4-2 on an Otto strike with 7:12 played in the second. Included in that run were a pair of power-play strikes from Therien with fresh apples from Brind'Amour that bracketed a successful first stanza. That seemed to awaken the dormant visiting offense, who flipped the script and took a 5-4 lead midway through the 3rd period on goals from Smolinski, Francis and Nedved – the latter coming 41 seconds apart.
It was also the thick of Jagr’s Troy Polamalu era, where his curly black locks flowed freely in every direction from underneath his Jofa bucket. The “pretty” sight caused the more IQ challenged Flyers faithful within distance to the ice to whistle and catcall loud enough to be picked up on any broadcast; a situation which persisted long after the Flyers moved into a larger building where sound took longer to travel.
A target firmly on his front AND back, Jagr played fearlessly, recording 8 shots on net along with a goal and 2 assists. Sometimes he gave, some times he got. As time ticked down in regulation in a firewagon 5-5 game, second-year Flyers defenseman Karl Dykhuis ensured the Czech winger got, to the delight of the home crowd.
“It was exciting, it was frustrating,” Lindros wryly noted of the game where his team allowed the most goals in a win all season. “It was a lot of things.”
It would also be one of the Flyers’ two offensive highlights for the better part of two months. After this sizzling decision, their offense went cold, then completely dormant as the weather on the East Coast went from seasonal to numbing. The Penguins, oddly enough, also had a dry spell from mid-January to mid-February which cost them a shot at 400 goals. They “settled” for a league-best 362.
These clubs hooked up in Philadelphia one more time, a Sunday matinee and FOX national broadcast on March 31 which saw Lemieux sidelined in the second of back-to-backs with travel, opening the door to LeClair’s hat trick that brought him tantalizingly close to his first 50-goal season in a 4-1 win.
After five long years, it appeared the rivalry between these original expansion clubs was tilting back in Philly's favor.
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