From: seth@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (peter.r.clark..jr)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey
Subject: FLYERS notes 11/23
Date: 23 Nov 92 19:21:49 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T


Not a good weekend for the FLYERS as they only come up with 1 of a possible
4 points, end a 5 game winning streaks, end scoring streaks for Lindros and
Fedyk, and worst of all, lose Eric Lindros for 1-6 weeks.

Our top story:

1:04 into the first period last night, FLYERS on their 1st power play 1 minute 
into the game, Eric Lindros, Mark Recchi and Peter Svoboda all collide
behind the Sabres goal, and Eric does not get up. He is helped off the ice
by a trainer and Keith Acton, but he walks from the bench back to the dressing
room under his own power. He suffered at least a sprain to his left knee. An
MRI will be done today to determine if there was a tear. If it is just a
sprain, he will probably be back in time to face the Quebec Nordiques on
December 3rd (missing two games vs the Islanders). If there is a partial
tear, he will be out 4-6 weeks.

Injuries:
Rod Brind'Amour - day-to-day with a lacerated elbow suffered 11/19 vs the
NY Rangers. He missed both weekend games.
Terry Carkner - day-to-day with a hand injury also suffered vs the Rangers.
He missed the Boston game and played vs Buffalo.
Gary Galley - not sure of the injury. He was questionable for the Buffalo
but played (well, I might add)
Pelle Eklund - two more weeks still on the broken ankle.
Rick Nattress - still indefinite with his back injury

Lineup changes:

Lomakin and Butsayev played in place of Pederson (healthy) and Brind'Amour
respectivley, and Shawn Cronin played in place of Carkner in the Boston
game. Then Len Barrie (called up from Hershey, wearing #34) replaced Butsayev
and Carkner returned in the Buffalo game.
Beauregard started vs Boston, Roussel vs Buffalo

Game Summaries:

First the 4-3 loss in Boston. I was kind of expecting a loss here. A 5
game winning streak on the line in a place where there is a definite home
ice advantage, and Boston playing well all added up to a rough night for the
FLYERS coming off the big win vs. the Rangers. The FLYERS came out very
flat in this game, and the ice seemed terrible judging from the number of
times players on both sides kept losing control while skating with the puck.

Boston got on the board first when Gord Hynes tried to come out from behind
his own net. He got about 1/2 way to the blue line when he lost control of
the puck. Stumpel grabbed the puck and tried to pass to a Bruin who was being
tied up by Gary Galley, but the puck deflected off of one of them and made a
90 degree turn onto the stick of Heinze. Beauregard came out to try and knock
it away from Heinze, but he couldn't get to it and Heinze skated around him
and scored at 7:11 of the first.

At 11:37 Ryan McGill got into a battle with Brent Ashton. McGill landed
a nasty left to the eye of Ashton that staggered him a little, but Ashton
recovered and threw a couple late in the fight. Ashton's eye was closed
up by the time he got to the penalty box, with 3 cuts from that one blow.
It was the nastiest shiner I've ever seen.

Less than a minute later, Mark Recchi (who had a lousy game) made a
terrible blind pass attempt from deep in the FLYERS zone. It was intercepted
by Hughes who took a shot that was wide right, but Steve leach was standing
there to intercept it and stash it home. Beauregard had no chance. 2-0
Boston after 1, only 3 shots on goal for the FLYERS who were inept
offensively, but not as bad defensively as the score would indicate.

The FLYERS got a 5 minute power play when Donato checked Ryan McGill into
the boards from behind 4:19 into the second, but the FLYERS were able
to muster only one shot on net, the only shot in 15 minutes of power play
time in the game for the FLYERS. If you are on the advantage for 1/4 of a
hockey game, you damn well better get more than one shot if you expect to
be successful in the NHL. IMHO.

Gord Hynes got the only goal of the second period, giving the FLYERS some
life. Lindros carried through the neutral zone and dropped to Recchi,
who carried into the offensive zone. He saw Hynes charging the net and
sent a pass towards him. Borque got a stick on it, but just redirected it
onto Hynes stick a little differently than it would have gone by itself.
Hynes mishandled the pass and popped it into the air, but was able to use
his shaft to beat Moog to draw the FLYERS to within 1. The FLYERS outshot
the Bruins 9-5 in the second, but neither team was still able to get much
going offensively.

Then the bounce went against the FLYERS again. Beauregard tried to clear
the puck, but it hit a %$&^$^*% glass support. Lindros tried to chop it
out of the zone but it went off a body onto Poulin's stick, and he flat
out beat Beauregard who may not have completely settled back into the net.
3-1 Bruins at 9:56.

Less than 1/2 a minute later, Kevin Dineen carried into the Boston zone,
then sent a turnaround prayer towards the net. It went through two Bruins
right to Lomakin who was stationed right in front of the net, and Lomakin
forced it past Moog to again draw the FLYERS to within 1 at 10:25.

But with time running down to the smaller numbers (as Mike Emrick often
says) Heinze scored when he was around the top of the circles in the
FLYERS zone, he got the puck, gave it up to a FLYERS defenseman, stole
it back again, mishandled and then finally sent a turnaround slapper past
Beauregard, the one goal Steph had a chance to stop of the 4 he let in.

But the FLYERS hadn't given up yet. With Lomakin in the box, the Bruins
were putting on lots of presure on the FLYERS. They finally cleared the
zone, though, and Wesley passed to Bourque back in Boston's own end. Bourque
mishandled the pass, though, and Fedyk and Dineen and Bourque all hacked
away at it until it finally landed on Fedyk's stick, and Fedyk pumped it
point blank past Moog to again draw the FLYERS within one, but that would
be it for the night.

Despite the bad offensive effort, though, there were some positives. They
were 4-4 killing penalties, only the second game this season they didn't
give up a power play goal. Lomakin had another strong effort, particularly
considering his lack of playing time recently. Yushkevich just keeps getting
better and better. Also, the fact that they didn't give up was very important
IMHO. Finally Shawn Cronin had a great night, he was probably the 2nd best
defenseman after Yushkevich. That's real good news after some brutal outings
earlier in the season.

Then it was Sunday night at the Spectrum. I had this one penciled into
the win column since Buffalo had only 1 win on the road this season, but
how could I have known that Eric would go down 1:04 into the game. The FLYERS
were flat for the rest of the period, but on their 4th power play of the
period finally put some pressure on and got a goal at 18:30. Kevin Dineen
carried deep into the Buffalo zone, pointed to Benning who passed across
to Galley, and Galley found Recchi all alone between the circles. Recchi
turned around and fired the puck past Hasek for the 1-0 lead.

But it didn't last long. Andreychuk (from Sutton) carried into the neutral
zone and hit Mogilny streaking into the FLYERS zone (VERY close to a 2 line
pass, you couldn't cut it closer than that, give Andreychuk credit) all
alone, and he beat Roussel to tie it at 1 at 19:33.

Then with everybody sagged deep in the FLYERS zone on a Buffalo power play
just under 7 minutes into the second, Boivin came out of the box, got control
of the puck, and sent it to Recchi who was just coming out of the FLYERS
zone with nobody between himself and Hasek at the other end. It was about
as long a breakaway as you can have, and Recchi didn't even make much of a
move, he just blew the puck past Hasek for a 2-1 FLYERS lead. This lead
lasted a bit longer, but at 17:24 it was Mogilny again answering back for
Buffalo when Corkum hit him as he was crossing the FLYERS blue line again,
this time right up the middle, and like Recchi he just blew the puck past
Roussel to even it at after 2.

Just under 6 minutes into the 3rd, Dmitri Yushkevich stole the puck in the
neutral zone as the Sabres were coming out, stepped across the blue line
and fired a slapper past Hasek for his 2nd NHL goal.

But just over 1/2 a minute later with Dave Brown in the sin bin, Dale
Hawerchuk sent a perfect feed through the FLYERS defense to hit a streaking
Pat LaFontaine at the side of the FLYERS goal, and he had more than enough
net to shoot at to tie it at 3.

Then with only 2:10 left in the game Hawerchuk found Hannan to give the
Sabres a 4-3 lead, and the crowd started heading out the door. But with
Roussel sitting on the bench, Yushkevich got a shot off that went behind
the net. There was a bit of a scramble for the puck, and Len Barrie picked
it up, circled behind, came out on the right and fired the puck past Hasek
with 0:15 remaining to tie the game at 4.

The FLYERS had the best chance in the OT, but neither team scored and 4-4
was the final.

1st Quarter report:

So the season is 1/4 done. The FLYERS are 8-9-4, in 4th place, 14th overall
in the toughest division in hockey. I thought that the Adams might take over
that title this year with Quebec looking so strong and Boston and Montreal
looking pretty good, but then I remembered that they had Hartford and Ottawa.
They are 6-2-2 at home, 2-7-2 on the road and 4-5-1 in the division. Only
being 1 game under .500 in the division in itself is a major plus, as they
were horrible within the division last year. They have to start winning on
the road, though.

Mark Recchi's performance vs Buffalo got him to within 3 points of Pat
Lafontaine for 3rd place overall in scoring. Eric Lindros is tied for
1st in rookie scoring with Teemu Selanne, although if you don't count
last night's 1:04 and the 3 minutes and change he played in St Louis,
he's done it in fewer games. He was also, according to somebody else on
the net, on a pace to get more points per game in his rookie year than
a guy the call Mario who happens to play in the same division.

Overall, the front lines are starting to shape up. Scoring is coming from
a lot of places, although they haven't gotten much consistency from the
Brind'Amour-Dineen combination. Claude Boivin is chipping in a couple here
and there, not bad for a 4th line player. Lomakin isn't getting much
playing time due to numbers, but he seems to score every time he's in
the lineup ('til last night, but he had a very solid performance) so
maybe he'll be working his way in. I don't know what the heck they're
gonna do with Pelle Eklund if nobody else gets hurt. Greg Paslawski
keeps moving farther and farther down on the depth chart. Of course, the
biggest surprise is Brent Fedyk, rounding out the crazy 8's. He's only a
couple points away from joining Lindros and Recchi in the top 20 or so
scorers.

The defense got off to a shaky start, but Yushkevich is looking like the
next Mark Howe, and so it's fitting that he's wearing number 2. He's
got a perfect balance of when to play offense and when to play defense,
and he's developing a great sense of when lightning is about to strike
going the other way. I can't count how many times he's dove to break up
a breakaway. He's got a good slap shot, he can carry the puck, and for
a guy who isn't huge, he can hit people hard. Ryan McGill has earned
his promotion to the bigs, and Gord Hynes has become very solid defensman.
He's not very visible, and that's exactly the kind of defenseman every
team needs one of: he just does his job. Benning and Galley still have
a tendancy to give up a little defensively. Terry Carkner somehow is
leading the team in plus/minus. Don't ask me how that's possible.

Roussel and Beauregard started out like gangbusters, then were brutal for
a while, but now seem to have settled into being very good. Not great,
but very good, and consistent if nothing else. I'd still like to see a little
more out of one of them.

The next quarter (21 games) runs until 1/14 when they play Calgary in Philly.
During that time they will play 1/2 of their Smythe division games as it will
include the annual post X-mas west coast road trip that starts in Washington.
Don't know why it always seems to start in Washington, but it does. It will
also include the first look at the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning, 9 division
games (home and homes vs NYI and Pit) vs all divisional foes except the
Devils. First up, it's the Islanders this coming Friday and Saturday.

pete clark jr - rsh FLYERS contact
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA