February 14, 2004: Flyers hammer Rangers in Valentine's Day matinee
This Saturday afternoon game featured the Flyers hosting Mark Messier and the New York Rangers on a national telecast on ABC. Like many games prior in this rivalry, Valentine's Day or not, there was no love between these two teams.
The Flyers took the first game of a "home and home" series two days prior up in New York, winning 2-1. The game was costly for the Flyers as star Jeremy Roenick had his left jaw broken in multiple places from a shot from Rangers defenseman Boris Mironov. A rising blast from the right point caught J.R. in the face with 15 minutes to go in the third In true J.R. fashion, he would leave the ice with assistance, but on his feet. The guy was tough as nails.
For this matinee tilt, Roenick was in the press box, his mouth wired shut and as big as a softball. He cheered on his Flyers as they dismantled, then pummeled the visiting Rangers, 6-2.
The first period was pretty quiet for 16 of the 20 minutes played, until a goal in the slot from Radovan Somik put the Flyers ahead 1-0. Just over a minute later, Mark Recchi found John LeClair to the left of Rangers goalie Mike Dunham and LeClair slammed home his 17th of the year for a 2-0 lead heading to the middle frame.
In the second, the Flyers would go up 3-0 on a Michal Handzus power-play goal that trickled over the goal line after a pile up in front. Five minutes later, Tony Amonte came flying down the left wing alone on Dunham, and went backhand to forehand for a sweet breakaway goal to increase the Flyers lead to four.
Finally, the Rangers would show a little bit of life, as Chris Simon would deflect a wrist shot from the point off of the stick of Brian Leetch, past Flyers netminder Sean Burke at 12:04 to make it 4-1.
As was the case for most of the afternoon, the Rangers were just not in sync and the fifth goal highlighted that. From a faceoff in the New York zone, Patrick Sharp was credited with a goal after a pass from Ranger Boris Mironov to Greg deVries hit his skate and fluttered past a surprised Mike Dunham and into the net at 14:39.
With the score 5-1 and the Rangers clearly dejected, they just needed to get to the locker room and regroup for the third period. Sharp had other ideas.
As the clocked ticked down under 30 seconds remaining in the period, he headed to the net as a shot came from Kim Johnsson at the right point. It hit Tony Amonte on the way in, kicked left and deflected to an open Sharp who tapped it into an unoccupied yawning net. At 6-1, the rout was on.
To start the third period and the game all but decided, it would be interesting to see how the Rangers would handle their second defeat in three days to their division rival.
Not so well.
A couple of minutes in, the NHL’s infamous gnat on skates, the Rangers Matthew Barnaby, decided to mix it up with a much bigger Donald Brashear. No stranger to the Flyer faithful from his prior days in Buffalo and Pittsburgh, the Philly crowd wanted to see Brashear get the best of Barnaby. Then, the Rangers Dale Purinton jumped on Brashear from behind, taking him to the ice — the third man in, no question. Then everyone piled in.
As the late Hall of Fame Flyer announcer Gene Hart would say, "We have ourselves a donnybrook."
All 10 players piled in and it would be a signal for things to come.
After an Alexei Kovalev goal on the power play for the Rangers made it 6-2 at 3:50, things would stay relatively quiet until the final three minutes.
Once again, Brashear was involved, this time with Simon in a heavyweight tilt. Then with just over a minute remaining, Flyers enforcer Todd Fedoruk got into it with Mironov and was assessed a game misconduct. Jamie Lundmark of the Rangers threw down with Danny Markov. Sharp added his name to the score sheet once again as he took on Dan Lacouture.
After well over 40 penalty minutes and a couple of game misconducts were handed out, a roaring "Rangers suck" chant engulfed the arena. ABC color commentator and former NHL goalie Darren Pang made no mistake in telling broadcaster Steve Levy, and all of the national television audience exactly what the Flyers Faithful were saying.
Priceless.
Not only had the Flyers beaten the Rangers handily this day, but took all four points from a division rival in the home-and-home series. The win would be their fifth straight and give them a 9-1-1 record in their last 11 games.
Full highlights of this game can be seen below.
Mike Watson is a contributing writer for Flyerdelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Mwats_99.
