Flyers beat up on the Sens
Mark Recchi exacted the best kind of revenge on Martin Havlat Friday night.
No, Recchi and the Philadelphia Flyers did not fulfill coach Ken Hitchcock's prophecy that "someday, someone's going to make [Havlat] eat his lunch."
Instead, Recchi scored his 25th goal of the season to lead the Flyers to a 5-3 victory over the Ottawa Senators at the Wachovia Center in a key Eastern Conference matchup.
Philly's win comes just eight days after these same two teams battled to an ugly 1-1 tie in Ottawa, a game marred by Havlat smacking Recchi flush in the face with his stick.
Havlat was assessed a five-minute major for attempt to injure and a game misconduct, but that did little to calm a seething Hitchcock as he told reporters after the game that "this is something, in my opinion, that the players should take care of."
The Flyers (35-16-12-6) took care of it all right, thumping the Senators on Friday night from the opening whistle until the final buzzer to improve to 88 points. The Tampa Bay Lightning were 3-2 winners over New Jersey Friday, as they remained tied with the Flyers for first place in the East.
Fourth-place Ottawa (35-18-9-5) drops four points out of first but has two games in hand on the Flyers.
The win was even more impressive when you consider Philadelphia defencemen Chris Therien and Joni Pitkanen left the game in the first period due to injuries. They did not return, forcing the Flyers to play two full periods of hockey with only two regular defenceman.
Claude Lapointe, Danny Markov, Kim Johnsson and Alexei Zhamnov also tallied for Philadelphia who has won seven of its last nine at home. Zhamnov also collected an assist to improve his point total to nine (four goals, five assists) since coming to Philadelphia in a trade from Chicago on Feb. 19.
John Slaney, Michal Handzus and John LeClair all collected a pair of assists for the Flyers, while Robert Esche was called upon to make 20 saves to earn the win
Chris Neil, Zdeno Chara and Peter Bondra scored for Ottawa, who are 1-2-2 in its last five games. Marian Hossa was kept off the score sheet as his point streak (three goals, four assists) was halted at six games.
After Neil gave the Sens a 1-0 lead, the Flyers exploded for three goals in less than six minutes midway through the first period. The teams traded power-play goals in the second, before the Flyers put the game out of reach early in the third when Zhamnov beat Ottawa goaltender Patrick Lalime for his 10th goal of the season.
The game turned into an all-out brawl in the dying minutes of the game as heavyweights Donald Brashear and Rob Ray scrapped it out.
Several fights then broke out, including a punch-fest between Lalime and Esche. Both netminders were tossed for fighting, forcing backups Sean Burke and Martin Prusek to take over the goaltending duties for the rest of the game.
Things calmed down but flared up again with the resumption of play as more fights broke out before the referee even had the chance to drop the puck. After more penalties were handed out, another round of fisticuffs erupted prior to the faceoff.
The game eventually restarted but it only took a few seconds before yet another round of fights broke out. More penalties were handed out, but again, another fight started with the drop of the puck.
With both benches depleted, the clubs played the final minute of regulation without incident. Ottawa salvaged a little pride as Bondra scored with 17 seconds left.
When all was said and done, the clubs set a new record for penalty minutes in a game (419), breaking the old mark of 406 set by the Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins in 1981.
Things got even hotter after the game as Philadelphia general manager Bob Clarke stormed towards Ottawa's dressing room, but was stopped by Flyer officials.
"Their tough guy (Rob Ray) got beat up and then their next two lines fought guys who don't fight," said Hitchcock. "I don't care what it shows them. We played a great game."
"I thought we competed hard and I don't know what happened at the end," Senators coach Jacques Martin said.
The Senators host Nashville on Saturday before beginning a five-game road swing Monday in Washington.
with files from CP Online