Tocchet, Brind'Amour share brief Flyers history

by Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

One of the internal factors which doomed the final month of the 1990-91 season for the Philadelphia Flyers, was a lack of depth at forward.

Head coach Paul Holmgren had poked and prodded and cajoled his team within 7 points of first place in the Patrick Division by March 1, solid playoff footing in an era when whoever finished first through fourth made the playoffs, regardless of record.

But with former 50-goal scorer Tim Kerr sidelined again for a majority of the campaign, defensive leader Mark Howe out for all but 19 games that year and notable names such as Dale Kushner, Craig Berube, Mark Pederson and Normand Lacombe drawing regular shifts, collapse was imminent. 

And collapse they did, going 2-10-2 over the final 29 days of the regular season, dropping from second to fifth and missing the postseason by three points.

General manager Russ Farwell, overmatched as he was in the transition from a front office guru in the Western Hockey League of Canadian juniors to the National Hockey League, was able to pull off a minor coup just as the following season’s training camp began.

Taking advantage of the St. Louis Blues’ belt-tightening in the wake of a second-overall finish exploding into a second-round playoff loss, on Sept. 22, 1991, Farwell unloaded captain Ron Sutter and defenseman Murray Baron in exchange for veteran winger Dan Quinn and young forward Rod’Brind’Amour.

Heading into his 8th pro season, Rick Tocchet had a front-row seat to the Flyers’ sudden implosion. 

In the space of two seasons, from surprise Wales Conference Finals entrant to one of five teams which *didn’t* advance to the playoffs in a 21-team league, two years running. One of Keenan’s Kids who developed into a bona-fide threat with his hands, Tocchet led the Flyers in goals (37), assists (59) and points (96) in 1989-90, then in goals (40) and points (71) in 90-91.

Brind’Amour, who was targeted as a into a verifiable two-way, winger/center behind Brett Hull and Adam Oates in the Gateway City, became a Tocchet clone once he set foot in Philadelphia despite some complaints over a perceived over-reliance on conditioning and some bad feelings from Blues management after winning a salary arbitration case.

“It was a relief to be out of there. I really didn’t care where,” he told local beats after arriving. “I put a lot of pressure on myself and didn’t play as well as I could have. I didn’t come out very well, then the Blues stuck me in a third-line role.”

Although Holmgren named Tocchet captain, there were reservations based on the latter’s method of message sending.

“If we didn’t give it to him, we’d lose him,” Holmgren said to Jay Greenberg in the Daily News and reprinted in Full Spectrum. 

In a season which saw their best defensive forward (Steve Kasper) lost early on with a season-ending knee injury, Holmgren bounced in early December in favor of the avuncular Bill Dineen toward the end of an 0-7-1 skid, Tocchet injured, then traded to a division rival, Brind’Amour was the model of constancy.

He set career bests in goals (33), assists (44), and points (77) while participating in all 80 regular-season contests – like Tocchet, all of which led the Orange and Black – but the Flyers missed the postseason for the third season in a row. 

Tocchet wasn’t around to see the end of the 91-92 season on the east side of Pennsylvania. On Feb. 19, 1992, with the Flyers mired in the bottom five offensively, he was dealt along with goaltender Ken Wregget and defenseman Kjell Samuelsson and a third-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for center Mark Recchi and defenseman Brian Benning. 

This upset Tocchet to no end. He’d been named captain only months before in the wake of the Sutter trade. He played in just 42 games, sidelined by a sprained knee that cost him a spate of games after Thanksgiving, then a stress fracture in his left heel which dogged him since before the All-Star break and cost 10 games over 4 weeks. The trade came just 4 games after his return, in which he posted 4 points.

Although he suffered a broken jaw shortly after his Steel City tenure began, Tocchet was quoted in Full Spectrum as saying he “hoped the Pens would win by 10 goals” in their rematch on March 31 in Pittsburgh. He scored once in a 6-5 home side triumph. 

However, over the 42 games that both Tocchet and Brind’Amour were in the lineup that 25th anniversary season, the Flyers weren’t in bad shape, posting a 15-19-8 record. 

On three occasions, they managed to score in the same game: a 5-4 loss at the Islanders on Oct. 12, then twice on the road against the North Stars, a 5-2 win on Oct. 24 and a 3-0 decision on Dec. 21. The former and latter evenings saw Tocchet and Brind’Amour score in the same period. 

Tocchet remained on “seethe mode” against the Flyers for most of his Penguins tenure. He and Brind’Amour even managed to square off during the 1993-94 exhibition schedule:

These rugged ships narrowly passed in the night once more at the end of the decade. According to reports at the time, Bob Clarke – once again implanted as Flyers GM – was rumored to be interested in acquiring Tocchet from the Phoenix Coyotes at the end of the 1998-99 season. He’d settle for retreads Steve Duchesne and Craig Berube. 

After years and years of trade rumors slanted in his direction, Brind’Amour also eventually received the Tocchet treatment. After a broken foot and resultant surgery sidelined him for the first two months of the pivotal 1999-2000 season, Clarke struck only 12 games after his return in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes to deepen the center position by acquiring holdout Keith Primeau. 

The deal, consummated on Jan. 23, 2000 has been dissected ad nauseam for the impact it made on both franchises. Tocchet was eventually re-acquired in exchange for former Legionnaire Mikael Renberg on March 9, 2000.

When it came time to honor each players' respective service to the franchise, Brind’Amour was enshrined first, entering the Flyers Hall of Fame in November 2015, while Tocchet finally gained his laurel 6 years later. 

Desperation, luck gives Flyers OT, series win over Penguins

by Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

By the time the clock ticked down inside of three minutes to play in the first overtime period of Game 6 in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Wednesday night, all the rabbits feet were worn to a nub, each of a hundred thousand promises to a higher power spent, chants and curses falling silent from trembling lips, all fantasies gone flailing aground. 

There was nothing for 20,000-plus fans inside the arena and millions across Flyers Nation to do but sit. 

And wait. 

For the inevitable.

A crushing loss and a winner-take-all road Game 7. Or their first series win on home ice in 14 years and the next cleared hurdle in the maturity of this young core.

“It’s hard to say the words, but it’s been a long time, there’s been a lot of frustration. Obviously I’m happy for the guys,” said Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet after they closed out the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 1-0 overtime victory that needed to come with its own trigger warning.

“It’s huge for the young guys’ development. To play … in this kind of pace, this atmosphere, overtime, tense, this is huge for the young guys to taste it. I’m really proud of them hanging in there for us.”

The Orange and Black were swimming in slow motion through Sahara-deep sand ever since taking control of the back half of the second period. The effort was clearly taxing on all involved. The green light that signified the end of regulation rescued them from a steady-rolling possession game by the Pittsburgh Penguins which suggested the next break in the game and the series would be theirs.

After working statistically even through the first two periods in a scoreless deadlock, the ice and the basic numbers that tell the game story were tipped in the Pens’ favor: a 13-5 shot edge in the final 20 minutes of regulation and 10-5 through 17:31 of the extra session. 

Every overtime hinges on the one break that makes the red light glow, but in the frenzy and desperation of scoreless tie, during a potential elimination game, knowing one mental mistake can be the difference, the breaks don’t always go to the team with the most pressure. 

Sometimes the club back on its heels makes the most of their one good shot.

And that one good shot came from defenseman Cam York. His first career playoff goal was also the OT and series winner. York was stationed about a step or two inside the blue line, took a somewhat-risky backhand pass from Matvei Michkov and launched a line-drive wrister. 

Since d-man Nick Seeler’s seeing-eye laser from the left point sailed by a screen and past Pens goaltender Stuart Skinner for the hosts’ 3rd goal in a Game 3 victory, the Flyers had largely failed to produce sufficient traffic in front of Skinner and replacement Arturs Silovs.

In Game 6, they only managed 2 or 3 bona-fide screens in front of Silovs. The third and last one saw Flyers winger Noah Cates disengage from Pittsburgh’s Ryan Shea for a second, slipping behind Shea as York fired from deep out on the right side. The rising shot found the back of the net, never touching a jersey, body part or pad en route to history. 

Only Ruslan Fedotenko had ever won a 1-0 overtime playoff game for the franchise, in Game 1 of the Eastern quarterfinals against Ottawa on Apr. 17, 2002. Never mind what else didn't happen in that series.

The spontaneous explosion of emotion radiated down through the 25-year-old, 5th-year backliner, who raced to center ice and threw his stick like a javelin to parts unknown into the lower bowl. 

"I just hope everybody's okay. I don't want a lawsuit," York joked.

It was poetic and karmic justice, as the home squad’s only other bona-fide chance to end things came on the previous shift as rookie Porter Martone’s backhander from in close was denied as Silovs dove and threw his stick, legally, to deaden the puck. 

“I like these games, I love it when there’s so much at stake,” Silovs admitted when asked about how he dealt with the pressure of a win-or-go-home contest. He was less forthcoming when asked to describe what he felt on the winning score.

The visitors did a better job all game of crashing the net, screening Vladar, maintaining possession around the crease, as if they were not bothered by needing to extend this series to a Game 7 back in Pittsburgh. 

But some hairy moments over the game’s final 37 ½ minutes – which would have been a serious momentum-shifter for the Penguins – were avoided by unfocused chances, forceful defensive sticks along with Dan Vladar’s motion and vision.

“It’s unfortunate. I thought especially in the second half of that game, we had some really good looks,” a downbeat Sidney Crosby said postgame with a disappointed shrug. “We were a shot away from going back to Pittsburgh for Game 7. It comes down to bounces sometimes, but putting yourself in that position (to have to come back from 0-3 down) is tough.”

Vladar, who ended up stopping all 42 shots, etched his name in the record books, joining Bernie Parent, Pelle Lindbergh, Ron Hextall, Roman Cechmanek and Michael Leighton as Flyers goaltenders to register at least 2 shutouts in a best-of-seven series.

“I don’t really care if it’s 1-0 or 8-7. For me, it’s just a winning mentality. There was never a doubt. I think I can speak for the entire locker room,” Vladar said in the locker room. “I cannot try to stop the puck harder. Good things happen to good people and we are good people in here.”

Nobody knows whether Vladar opens doors for little old ladies or helps the blind to see, but the iron was kind to Vladar twice, the last and most crucial time when Penguins forward Egor Chinakhov unloaded a shot from the wing midway through the third stanza. 

Of all his 42 stops, nowhere was the influence of the hockey gods more evident than a series beginning with 3:39 remaining in the third. First, he flashed a pad and stretched a skate to stop a doorstep offering from Bryan Rust, then two pokes from Rust and Crosby failed as a mass of humanity collapsed around him.

The capper to the late-season 18-7-1 run which secured a playoff berth couldn’t have been met with a better opponent at a better time.

Tell me with a straight face a postseason baptism for this club, and a subsequent win, would have been as satisfying against any other team in either conference.

That luck of the draw won’t help the Flyers in the next round against the Hurricanes. There is no history, there is no animus, there is no rivalry and a smothering forecheck led to three Carolina wins beyond regulation earlier in the season. 

If there are any lessons to be gleaned from 2012 and applied to 2026,  it’s that a surprise series victory over the Penguins in a hate-filled, loosely-played matchup was followed by a surprise series defeat to the more disciplined, tighter-checking Devils. 

There are only so many prayers to be answered, so many locals who travel to Rome and present Popes with custom jerseys before the luck runs out. Belief is a common factor in the Flyers’ run, and it worked out. 

Once the high wears off, it’s time when belief needs to translate to confidence and then results.

'Feedback loop' fickle for Flyers despite control of series

by Bob Herpen

Phanatic Hockey Editor

If noise possesses personality, if voices are able to carry venom, the entire sports complex and Xfinity Mobile Arena specifically, were dangerous places to be for Penguins players and supporters in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal.

They were a little more safe on the weekend after Game 4 when the Penguins flipped the script.

A sellout crowd, clad in orange and bent on mayhem while witnessing the club’s first true home playoff game in exactly 8 years, set the tone on Wednesday night as the hosts took a 3 games to none series edge.

The win, their first in 10 years on home ice in the postseason, was a textbook example of fan excitement feeding and influencing play on the ice and vice versa into a gigantic feedback loop.

"It was great to experience that again,” deadpanned Flyers captain Sean Couturier after his club’s 5-2 victory. “We’re happy, but I think we’re happy for the city, for the fans, they’ve supported us through the ups and the downs the last couple years.”

The chants, curses and epithets started as soon as Flyers fans spotted the sparse crowd of Penguins fans who dared cross any threshold: the parking lot, Xfinity Live, the XMA entrance. The wave of malevolence swelled before each team took warmups, then hit a crescendo between the announcement of the starting lineups and the drop of the puck.

We’re not looking for Shakespearean-level insults here. This is a hockey crowd, so guttermouth is appropriate. 

Right on cue, they wished for rigorous carnal exploits to be visited on the visitors. Sidney Crosby and all the starters apparently performed similar actions to vacuum cleaners and then another round of well-wishes for violent intercourse emerged for Crosby in particular after his death-dive when Garnet Hathaway nicked his half-shield with the tip of his stick blade in the faceoff circle late in the first period.

Bryan Rust – of all things a graduate of that holiest of institutions just outside South Bend – sent things over the edge with 3:44 gone in the second period and the Penguins holding a 1-0 lead.

Responding to an obvious elbow thrown by Flyers combatant Travis Konecny during a netmouth scramble around Pens netminder Stuart Skinner, Rust simply lost his mind, tackling TK, throwing off his gloves and punching him repeatedly until Konecny’s reflex to gain some leverage while prone on the ice threw his hands up and his legs out. Upon repeated looks at replays, I saw none of the blatant kicking motion the other side suggested was so dirty.

Regardless of who started it, who did the most damage, or who finished it, the officiating crew, led by referee Francois Saint-Laurent, handled the situation poorly. And the feedback loop between fans and team kicked right in.

The resulting 10-minute recess, ending on the final decision to throw everyone on both sides on the ice into their respective penalty boxes, gave the already skeptical Philly crowd – on the precipice of seeing a third consecutive game with the calls weighted to their opponents – ample time to ramp up their emotion and sustain their complaints. 

“We know what they’re about. We know what to expect,” Rust offered, implicating purpose on the part of the home squad and their fans to turn an NHL playoff game into a WWE spectacle. “We just gotta do a better job of managing those emotions.”

Again, the usual taunts did quite nicely. The zebras were no longer zebras but gaping donkeys rear ends. It didn't even matter that the call came from opposite ends of the stands and clashed in the middle. The meaning was crystal clear.

“I could sit here over a bunch of beers and tell you some stories from back in the day,” said Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet on Wednesday about that feedback loop in action, “I’ve lived it, I’ve seen it. For me, (the best part is) to see the young guys … seeing that crowd. It’s been a while.”

I’m going to stop short at the Penguins’ online camps’ assertion that “the crowd” somehow bullied the officials into giving the Flyers a power play from which they began to seize control of the contest. It’s the same nonsense Mister Snider used to cry about publicly when calls in Toronto and Montreal didn’t go the Flyers’ way half a century ago.

Besides, never attribute to maliciousness what can be defined as incompetence. 

On the other hand, armed with a psychological edge of having nothing to lose in Saturday’s potential series-deciding game which ended up 4-2 in their favor, the Penguins opted to let their play do the talking and leave the extracurricular nonsense behind. The locals, always spoiling for a fight, weren’t as up for the challenge although the noise from a second straight sellout crowd was constant from warmups through the opening puck drop.

Sure, when the Pens scored first, again, in the first period and the goal scorer was Crosby, there was a momentary uptick of uproar that registered through the broadcast. And then, very little. Because the visitors executed the Flyers’ road gameplan in reverse. 

Fans could have turned the tide just over a minute into the second period when the first major terrible decision for either side turned into a game-changing advantage for the visitors. Upon a dump-in by Rust, Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar handled the puck in the trapezoid behind his net and hilarity ensued:

After that goal which gave the Penguins a 2-0 edge … nothing … except disappointed whimpers from the partisans and punters. No loud, repeated bellowing of “Vladdy” like there had been during his two key stoppages the previous evening.

“It was my bad of hitting him,” Vladar said during Saturday’s postgame. “You do it in practice, you do it 20 times in a row, how many times (the puck goes past the forechecker) and it is what it is. Nobody’s perfect.”

A half generation ago that would have brought out ALL the Negadelphian boo-birds: the ones who reflexively protest an opposition goal, the ones upset at the team’s nominal MVP committing such an egregious error at a crucial time and the ones who just needed to vent when something managed to go Pittsburgh’s way. 

Even when Denver Barkey redirected a Zegras feed on the doorstep to reduce the Flyers’ deficit to one later in the frame, the momentary burst of excitement only gave way to momentary bursts of the classic “LETS GO FLYERS” chant. The feedback loop simply didn’t exist. 

And when Crosby won a board battle before Pens defenseman Kris Letang rifled home the eventual game-winner with less than 4 ½ minutes elapsed in the third period, no bangs, only whimpers from a throng more than 20,000 strong. 

“I thought we were a little more poised. That stuff’s going to happen, it’s the playoffs,” Crosby offered in the postgame pool interview. “We just have to be a little bit more smart about it. Ultimately, we’ve got to save our energy for in between the whistles. That translated to the game and the way we played.”

Was it really ‘smart’ though when cameras caught Rust in the midst of a hair pull the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills couldn’t have executed better on Flyers rookie winger Porter Martone?  

The Pens home crowd is bound to be infinitely more engaged on Monday night than in the first two games. The Flyers have the blueprint to quiet them and it’s up to the players to execute the plan. If not, there’s a third and probably final chance for the Philly faithful to exert their influence.