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| Courtesy of Le Journal de Montreal |
Phanatic Hockey Editor
On this mid-winter evening at the Spectrum, Public Enemy No. 1 Claude Lemieux – like PootieTang – done did it again.
In a crucial Sunday night nationally-televised game between two teams expected to be championship contenders, the two-time Stanley Cup winner and Avalanche winger stole the show from a dynamic teammate and sunk the Philadelphia Flyers with the go-ahead goal in the final minute of regulation of a 5-3 road victory.
To recap: almost eight months earlier to the day, Lemieux took the starch out of a hostile crowd at the Spectrum on a steamy June afternoon and put the New Jersey Devils ahead in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals by a 3-2 score. The winning score, seen below as one of the most infamous whiffs in Ron Hextall's storied goaltending career, also staked his club to a 3-2 series advantage.
Once called "The Bill Laimbeer of Hockey" by the Hartford Courant, Lemieux was also called "clutch" long before Justin Williams stamped his indelible mark on multiple playoff Game 7s.
The timing of the goal deflated the host Flyers, who had fought through the frustrating neutral zone trap to erase a 2-0 deficit and tie the game with the sellout throng firmly in their corner. A win could have ensured a chance to close things out in a home-bound Game 7 even in the event of a Game 6 loss on the road.
"I was tied up with (Eric) Lindros and when Marty (Brodeur) made the save and it went into the corner, I just saw a lot of open ice on the right side," Lemieux said of his series-turning score.
"I wasn't sure if I should make a play or shoot. (Petr) Svoboda backed up a little and I fired it. It was lucky."
Instead, two nights later, despite scoring the first and last goals in that Game 6 at the Meadowlands, the Devils rifled home the middle four scores and ensured their first-ever trip to the championship round.
Lemieux, of course, had a hand in that crushing defeat, too.
Flash forward to the calendar year 19-naughty-six. Lemieux landed in Colorado thanks to a series of trades just prior to the start of the regular season that saw fellow contract refugees Steve Thomas (from New Jersey to NY Islanders) and Wendel Clark (from Colorado to NY Islanders) also change locations. deflated the Philly crowd once again.
The stakes weren’t nearly as high, and the goal wasn’t nearly as clean, but it did the job nonetheless. With two Stanley Cup rings plugging his ears, there was no way Lemieux heard the Philly faithful turn on him again.
It's what he does best. Remember all that...unpleasantness...in Montreal?
The dribbler -- another one Hextall should have snagged -- gave the visitors a 4-3 edge and took the starch out of a speed-for-speed, talent-for-talent matchup which featured second-year center and former Flyers first-round draftee Peter Forsberg record a hat trick – including the empty netter which accounted for the 5-3 final in the Avs’ favor.
The player for which he was packaged, Flyers captain Eric Lindros, chipped in with two goals and one assist including the tying score earlier in a frantic, six-goal third stanza.
Drafted No. 6 overall by then-Flyers GM Russ Farwell in 1991, Forsberg made his NHL debut in the Spectrum a little more than a year prior, on Jan. 21, 1995 when the Nordiques helped open the lockout-shortened season. Also there that Saturday afternoon but absent on Sunday night, Avs center Mike Ricci -- one of the other active Flyers also shipped to Quebec in the 1992 Lindros mega deal -- sidelined due to a bad back.
This time, Forsberg made his re-debut in a new uniform for the same franchise and posted the first of his eight career trifectas – accounting for exactly half of his career goal total vs. the Flyers in one evening. The often-injured super Swede went on to record 15 points (6G, 9A) over 15 appearances until signing here to a metric ton of anticipation before the 2005-06 campaign.
If you’re in contention for a division title and a top-two conference seed, it’s better to lose to a non-conference club that’s also competing for first overall and a shot at the President’s Trophy for home-ice throughout the playoffs. The Flyers split that part of the job: beating the eventual 62-win Red Wings but falling to the 47-win Avalanche.
Colorado *really* needed this one. Coming off a homestand which ended in a tie with Tampa Bay and loss to Hartford, the Avs dropped to 12 points behind Detroit for first place in the West and first place overall.
It’s also best to shore up the home side down the stretch, and the Orange and Black passed muster there, as well. They lost only two more home games from Feb. 11 through the end of the regular season, to the Devils and Bruins, going 10-2-1 in the Spectrum ahead of the playoffs. This loss ended a bad stretch of 2-4-3 on home ice since a rousing win over the Penguins just before Christmas.
Just about the only star-caliber player not involved with the contest was future Hall-of-Famer Patrick Roy. Roy, traded from the Canadiens to the Avalanche two months prior, had a horrendous overall record vs. the Flyers to this point in his career. That dismal mark included surrendering all 7 goals against Philly in both clubs’ season opener at the Forum back in October when he still toiled for the Montreal Canadiens.
Instead, Stephane "I deserve to be a starter in the NHL" Fiset got the nod in net for the visitors and nabbed the win with a 26-save effort. Although a potential Finals matchup between the Avalanche and Flyers never materialized for that season and during the remainder of the era, Lemieux continued his career-long torture game four years later.
Traded once again due to impending unrestricted free-agent status late in the 1999-2000 season from the Avs back to the Devils, Lemieux was part of the sinister squad which rallied from a 3-1 series deficit in the Eastern finals to beat the Flyers in 7 games and eventually went onto win the second of three Cups in 9 seasons.
