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| Courtesy of the NY Times |
By Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor
When the Philadelphia Flyers raised the curtain on their 29th season in the NHL and their last in the Spectrum, 30 years ago tonight in Montreal, the hockey gods and schedule-makers couldn’t have provided an opponent more ripe for the plundering.
The Montreal Canadiens missed the playoffs during the previous, lockout-shortened season, the first time they hit the links immediately following the completion of their regular-season schedule since 1970. Head coach Jacques Demers’ hot seat became even hotter as the club had backslid three seasons in a row from a Stanley Cup title, to a first-round elimination, to sixth place in their division.
The Flyers, meanwhile, were looking to prove their own five-year climb out of hockey’s also-rans that culminated in a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals, was no fluke. First-year head coach Terry Murray had previously reached the third playoff round five years earlier as bench boss with the Washington Capitals.
Since the landmark trade 240 days earlier which netted John LeClair, Eric Desjardins and Gilbert Dionne in exchange for Mark Recchi, the Flyers simply owned the Habs. Won three straight games to finish the season series 3-0-1, outscoring their Gallic foes by an 18-6 count.
Adding insult to injury, only 16 days after the deal, LeClair ran roughshod over his former club with a hat trick in a 7-0 shellacking that stands today as the largest margin of victory for the Orange and Black in the hockey Mecca.
After compiling 25 goals in 37 games after the deal (equivalent to 55 goals over a full 82-game schedule) then adding five more scores in 15 playoff tilts, Johnny Vermont charged into the new season fresh from inking a $7.5 million, 5-year contract and amidst plenty of press speculating how the Legion of Doom would fare for a whole season.
Team captain Eric Lindros entered his fourth NHL season as the reigning Hart Trophy winner, robbed of a scoring title due to finishing 2 goals shy of Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr and losing the league-mandated tiebreaker.
In June, after being handed the award by Canadian writer Scott Young, father of the godfather of grunge Neil Young, the 22-year-old burst into tears. He told millions across North America “Thanks to the fans of Philadelphia who supported us when we weren’t so good. We’re getting better, and we’re gonna do it!”
Big E cried all the way to the bank after the Hart honor triggered a clause in his contract which raised his yearly salary by a whopping $600,000 as reported by Jay Greenberg in Full Spectrum.
“When we’ve got the best player in the league, he’s worth it, don’t you think?” Greenberg reported then-Flyers owner Ed Snider responding to questions that the extension to Number 88 could have his wallet weeping.
Desjardins also reaped the windfall with a new $6 million pact over 4 years as did third-year sensation Mikael Renberg ($6.4 over 4 seasons).
“I think this group of guys wants to stay together,” Clarke noted. “And we want to keep them together.”
Finances secure, the game was essentially over before 15 minutes elapsed from puck drop. Four different Flyers punctured future Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, including Lindros, LeClair and two guys needing to secure regular roster spots in Patrik Juhlin and Rob DiMaio. Philly won the fights, too, during the 7-1 rout.
It wasn’t just the glow of a brand new season for the players.
The familiar voice you hear on the local Channel 17 broadcast in the above video is Jim Jackson. With the retirement of Gene Hart following the last of the club’s broadcasts during the Eastern Conference semifinals the previous May, the torch was passed and Jackson was promoted from the radio booth to the TV side. The pairing with former Flyer Gary Dornhoefer as color commentator would last the next 10 seasons, interrupted only by the washed-out 2004-05 campaign.
"You can't be unhappy with 28 years," Hart mused as he continued his role with the organization as a team ambassador.
In all, eight different players tied to the Flyers organization the year before lit the lamp (including Brent Fedyk, Rod Brind’Amour, Renberg for the visiteurs and Recchi for Montreal). Roy was pulled less than 23 minutes in after yielding 5 goals on 15 shots, lowering his career regular-season mark vs. Philly to 1-10-7.
The rout foreshadowed the sharp and dramatic inverse relationship to success between the two franchises during the latter half of the 1990s.
The Flyers went on to win four straight to start the year and ended October with a 7-1-3 mark. The Canadiens scored just 4 goals in their first 5 games – all losses – while the skid finally torched Demers for good. The hiring of former Habs legend Mario Tremblay out of the broadcast booth led to a sudden 12-2-0 turnaround, but his abrasive personality caused some trouble a bit later on with Roy.
When the Flyers returned for their last Forum go-round 9 days before Christmas, the visitors rudely wore out their welcome, but this time with the Legion taking a back seat. Two narrow home victories -- 3-2 on Feb. 1 marred by an ugly incident involving Marc Bureau and Petr Svoboda and another 3-2 score during the final regular-season contest at the Spectrum in April -- meant a clean 4-0-0 season sweep vs. Montreal for the first time in franchise history.
The Habs did not beat the Flyers again until October 26, 1996 at the spanking new Molson (now Bell) Centre and did not win in Philadelphia until well after the Orange and Black's new building was long-since christened, in January 1998.
