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| Courtesy of Mike Nguyen Art |
Phanatic Hockey Editor
Since Christmas, the high-octane offense which propelled the Philadelphia Flyers to contention in the Atlantic Division froze solid, as cold as the Polar vortex which descended on the region in the wake of the Blizzard of 1996 that officially dropped 30 inches on the city in a 24-hour span.
Heading into a Jan. 11 evening contest at Broad and Pattison against the St. Louis Blues, Terry Murray’s team had scored just 21 goals in their previous 8 games. They hadn’t tallied as many as six scores in nearly a month, hadn’t won by scoring more than four times in the same span and compiled a puzzling 2-3-4 record since outlasting the Penguins, 6-5, on Dec. 17.
Yet, they were still only five points behind the first-place Rangers and two back of second-place Florida.
Coming off a six-game cross-country holiday road swing, the Flyers were about to settle into a season-best five-game homestand against opponents from three different divisions. A softee against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and a trap contest with Mike Keenan’s Blues loomed ahead of a matinee mash-up with the Broadway Blueshirts on Jan. 13.
Mother Nature had other plans.
After dumping a record amount of snow in a record amount of time across the Delaware Valley on Jan. 7-8, the world pretty much shut down for an entire week.
With major roads finally opened by Tuesday and both the Flyers and Ducks able to make way to the Spectrum, the Anaheim game was allowed to proceed. Unfortunately, the home squad was attacked by a case of the stupids.
The Ducks scored twice in the game’s first seven minutes, then were content to let goaltender Guy Hebert steal the show. Only power-play goals by Eric Desardins and John LeClair – the latter coming 2:27 before the end of regulation, saved the Orange and Black from a worse fate than a 2-2 tie.
Spectrum Memories: Kicking of the series by recalling the Flyers season-opening blitz at Montreal.
Enter the Battlin’ Blues.
Keenan arrived in the Gateway City and promptly began tearing up the roster after a first-round loss to the Canucks the spring before, including a removal of the captaincy of star sniper Brett Hull. The Blues – mired in mediocrity and melodrama with malcontented veterans aplenty – sported one of the most anemic offenses in the NHL in stark contrast to their apoplectic bench boss.
Although Mikael Renberg’s tally just 24 seconds after the opening puck drop seemed to awaken the dead spirits, another attack of the stupids hit and the Flyers spent most of the middle portion of the game sleepwalking.
They fell behind 3-1 with under 8 minutes left in the second period on strikes from noted St. Louis snipers Craig Johnson, Shayne Corson and Stephane Matteau, then jolted awake with three straight scores – man-advantage markers by Desardins and Eric Lindros then the go-ahead marker from the very-much-living Yanick Dupre with 5:58 to play in regulation.
LeClair was booked for hooking with 1:54 on the clock, but no matter. In a 4-on-6 situation, Shjon Podein took an errant pass deep along the left-wing boards inside his defensive zone and slid the puck all the way into the vacant Blues net.
Bingo! Flyers lead, 5-3, with 28.4 seconds to go.
Except not.
The video below, a VHS reproduction of an ESPN2 broadcast with Steve Levy and Barry Melrose on the call, runs down through the final seconds of regulation.
Was it *really* an upturned glove laying inside the blue line? Did the puck accidentally strike a home player leaning over the bench to catch the action of the final minute? Watching the replay multiple times, it's hard to pick up. Those of us who watched ESPN back then know Barry Melrose is, was and always will be right any time he opened his mouth.
Spectrum Memories: Beating the Russian Five and the Red Wings on Black Friday.
After Matteau pushed the puck past Philly defenseman Kjell Samuelsson for his second strike of the game (at 5:03 of the video), both teams skated through a boring overtime before tempers flared at the buzzer. Four players, evenly divided, earned 10-minute misconducts.
The deadlock was the fifth for the Flyers in their last eight outings. It also bumped Keenan’s record in Philadelphia in three stops (Chicago, New York, St. Louis) since being fired in the spring of 1988 to 3 wins, 4 losses and 2 ties.
In the 42-day stretch between Dec. 17 and Jan. 28, the defending Eastern Conference champions labored through a 3-6-7 stretch where they won only once at home. That anticipated matchup with the Rangers less than 48 hours started out badly with a Mark Messier breakaway score less than a minute into the contest, then ended worse with a 4-0 shutout loss at the hands of (checks notes) backup Glenn Healy, who needed only 23 stops to pick up the road victory.
That home-based funk was finally ended thanks to the psychic jolt of the blood shed by veteran defenseman Petr Svoboda on Feb. 1.
Felled by an intentional, flying elbow of Canadiens forward Marc Bureau and prone at center ice as blood poured from his head and mouth, Svoboda was forced to leave the game and head to Methodist Hospital for evaluation. Bureau was subsequently forced to feel the wrath of Craig MacTavish, who earned five-and-a-game for jumping Bureau while the rest of the Habs felt the sting of coughing up a 2-0 lead and losing 3-2 in overtime on a Desjardins strike.
St. Louis, on the other hand, couldn’t snap out of their middling. They tied the final three games of a five-game road swing, went 0-3-1 on a four-game respite, then enjoyed a 7-1-3 stretch immediately before and after Keenan shocked the world by acquiring Wayne Gretzky from the Kings. More drama ensued as the 99-captained club continually failed to find offense, then sputtered to a six-game first-round loss to the Maple Leafs.
One day later, somewhere outside St. Louis, young hopeful Preston E. Wilson packed up his life and drove from the Midwest straight to Philadelphia, heading straight into a frozen tundra to begin a long and storied radio career.
Philly gained some revenge on Feb. 3 in St. Louis to close out the two-game season series. Lindros rifled home three goals, shook off multiple chances to fight while his teammates chased future Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr from the nets early and answered the bell often in a 7-3 rout.
One unintended consequence of the Blues’ slide worked out for the Flyers: one of the veteran malcontents, future Hall-of-Famer Dale Hawerchuk, was acquired straight up for MacTavish in mid March amidst Keenan's purge. That story to be told in full at a later time. Up next, Public Enemy No. 32 haunts the Flyers again, this time in a potential Stanley Cup Finals preview.
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