From: seth@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (peter.r.clark..jr)
Subject: FLYERS notes 12/24 (Flyers/Pens game summary included)
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 19:47:32 GMT



The FLYERS lost thier 8th game in 9 tries 4-0 to the Penguins last night.
Pens goalie Tom Barasso barely broke a sweat to earn the shutout, his 3rd
win vs the FLYERS in 9 days. This morning, coach Bill Dineen was interviewed
on 93.3 WMMR, I'll summarize at the end.

Injuries:

no changes

Lines:

Fedyk-Lindros-Recchi
Eklund-Brind'Amour-Dineen
Boivin-Acton-Evans
Paslawski, Snuggerud, Brown - not a line, filling in here and there.
Benning, Galley, Yushkevich, Nattress, McGill, Carkner
Soderstrom in net

The FLYERS had been playing as well at home with Lindros in the lineup as
they were playing badly on the road. However, the lackluster, uninspired
performance in Tampa carried over into this game, and after the Pens second
goal the FLYERS just rolled over and died.

It started just 41 seconds into the game. Dmitri Yushkevich picked up a loose
puck behind the FLYERS goal line, and tried to clear the puck with a blind
backhander. A rare bad play for Dmitri, the puck went right to the right
skate of Stevens just front of the blue line, who pushed it forward to
Lemieux. Mario had no trouble beating Soderstrom. Tocchet also got an
assist.

At 3:59 of the first, the FLYERS got a power play. They were pretty
ineffective as usual, but just before it ended, Kevin Dineen hit Rick
Tocchett from behind and drove him into the boards. It wasn't much of
a hit, but it was enough for ref Paul Devorski to send him off the ice
for the night. Mike Emrick thought that Dineen had enough game penalties
to get a one game suspension.

The FLYERS actually did a very good job of keeping the Pens out of the
net on the ensuing 5 minute power play. And it looked like they just about
had it killed off, but Larry Murphy did a little spin move to evade
Keith Acton just inside the right defensive blue line, backing Acton off
and allowing the Pens to set up for one last chance. Murphy set it across
to Ron Francis at the other point, he faked a slap shot and sent it back
to Murphy who quickly sent it to Lemieux who was at the bottom of the right
defensive faceoff circle. Brian Benning had Stevens blanketed in the slot,
but when the puck was on it's way to Lemieux, for some reason Benning
drifted away from him towards the goal. Lemiuex immediatly hit Stevens,
and Soderstrom didn't have time to slide across. 2-0 Pens with 3 seconds
left in the penalty, and after that the FLYERS just caved in only 10:38
into the game.

Super Mario made it 3-0 in the second period at the same time upping his
league leading scoring total to 97 points. Tippett to Stanton inside his
own blue line, and Stanton sent the puck to Mario all the way at the FLYERS
blue line. The pass went through a FLYERS who had his back to Stanton,
and the referee must have decided that it grazed the FLYER (or he made a
bad call on a two line pass) but I could see no change of direction on
the replay. Mario went in all alone on Soderstrom who made the initial
save with his stick while sprawling, but Lemiux just hacked it through
the stick. Had a defenseman been close enough to catch up before the
second shot it would have been covered...oh well...3-0 at 2:09 of the
second period.

Shawn McEachern got the capper at 12:21 of the period. He Tippett and Jagr
went in 3 on 3 against Paslawski, Yushkevich and probably Galley. Paslawski
and Yushkevich closed on Jagr and looked like they would break up the play,
but it went off Dmitri's skate and trickled slowly through. Tippett picked
up the loose puck and while falling centered to McEachern who chipped it past
Soderstrom for the 4-0 lead.

The FLYERS picked up the hitting after that, but were useless offensively,
going 0-5 on the power play and only getting 20 shots for the game.

In this morning's interview with Bill Dineen, the following bits of information
came out:

1) After Monday's game, an unknown grizzly veteran was quoted as saying to
a reporter that he was surprised that the team wasn't ordered to practice
first thing the next morning.

2) He mentioned that because to his surprise the coach said that he heard
second hand that there was grumbling early this week over practice being
too hard! Dineen naturally would not reveal how he got the info or who
was supposedly grumbling, nor would the reporter reveal who the "grizzly
veteran" was (my own speculation is that it was Acton or Brown).

3) After the loss to the Pens, there was a closed door meeting with Dineen,
Clarke, Farwell and both Sniders. Dineen refused to comment other than to
say that his job did not even come up in the meeting, and he only said
that because he was asked.

4) He is very concerned about the loss because he was trying to figure out
why the team was so lackluster on the road, and all of a sudden they come
out with that sort of performance at home. He then commented that this was
the main topic of the above mentioned meeting that he didn't was to talk
about.

That's all I can remember. Have a happy holiday...

pete clark jr - rsh FLYERS contact
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey