Penlty Shot Lifts Flyers Over Rangers In Overtime, 3-2
Handzus backhand buries Rangers
By Brian Marks, philadelphiaflyers.com
The Flyers couldn’t possibly come out of Thursday night’s primetime national hockey game without a win against the rival New York Rangers, could they? No matter the snowfall, the game was on.
Victory took a late overtime penalty shot by Michal Handzus to give the Flyers a 3-2 victory, their first win at home in their last seven games. It was the first overtime victory by successful penalty shot in team history and just second in NHL history since the five-minute overtime was instituted in 1982. Ironically, both have occurred against the Rangers.
Three minutes into overtime, New York forward Petr Nedved nearly beat Flyers goaltender Roman Cechmanek on shot off a 2-on-1 rush. Cechmanek stacked his pads, made the save and the Flyers stayed alive.
With just 36.7 seconds remaining in the extra period, Handzus skated in alone on New York goalie Dan Blackburn, but defenseman Tom Poti hooked the Flyers forward several times and was eventually whistled for a penalty, yielding the first Philadelphia penalty shot since the 2001 Stanley Cup Playoffs when Mark Recchi took one against Buffalo.
The First Union Center crowd rose to their feet as Handzus stormed down the ice, faked Blackburn, went to his backhand and lifted the puck over the Rangers goalie for the 3-2 win.
“I had a breakaway, [Poti] kind of hooked me on the arm and I lost my balance,” Handzus said. “I talked to Roman Cechmanek and he told me to go to the backhand and go high.”
“To me, to be able to have the confidence to make that play on that ice that late in the game…that’s a lot of confidence,” Ken Hitchcock said.
Recchi posted a goal and an assist and Jeremy Roenick scored his 10th goal of the season in the win.
“It was a great hockey game and it was fun to play in,” Recchi said. “[The Rangers] came in ready to play. We got a great goal by Handzus at the end. I had a feeling on the penalty shot. I actually had a good feeling on the game on night.
Recchi helped give the Flyers a 2-1 lead late in the second period, picking the puck off Ronald Petrovicky at the top of the Rangers defensive zone. He found Simon Gagne, who quickly dropped the puck down to Roenick in the right circle. Roenick wound up fired the puck high, beating Blackburn top left corner at 15:32.
“That was a real fun game to play in,” Roenick said. “When you have rivalries like that, it brings out all the emotion. We feel very fortunate to win the hockey game.”
The second period lead did not last long. A long Eric Lindros slap shot from above the right circle beat Cechmanek, glove side, at 18:00 and the teams went into second intermission deadlocked, 2-2. It was Lindros’ seventh goal of the year.
The Rangers ran off the first nine shots in the third period and the Flyers were unable to get off a shot themselves for the first 12:10 of the period. Both teams had trouble generating chances in the period and the game moved into overtime. It was the Flyers’ 10th extra period game of the year.
“It just seems like every game goes into overtime for us now,” Hitchcock said. “These are emotional times for everybody. These are hard games and when they’re this close, there’s no rest. It’s a hard thing to tell the players, but this really helps you long term.”
Recchi got the game’s first goal early in the second period. On the goal, Justin Williams found Recchi positioned alone across the slot in the right circle while the team had the man advantage. As he moved towards the goal line, Recchi put his shot on net. Blackburn appeared to initially stop the puck in his pads, but it squeezed through and the Flyers had a 1-0 lead at 2:02. It was the Flyers' first power play goal in four games.
“This is the second game in a row that Mark played like this,” Hitchcock said. “It’s a very energized right now and he’s really carrying the mail for us. We had people who needed to step up today.”
For the Rangers, Bobby Holik was playing his first game since a hip flexor put him on the injury list for last month. He led New York all night, generating four shots, a goal and an assist. His goal tied the action, 1-1, near midway in the second period.
Matthew Barnaby put a shot on Cechmanek from the left side. The puck kicked off the goaltender and out to the slot, where Holik smashed it past a knocked down Cechmanek, tying the action, 1-1, at 7:40. It was Holik’s second goal of the year and first since October 17.
“Holik came in and made a big difference for them,” Hitchcock said.
Notes: New York has lost its last six games at the First Union Center…Recchi’s two points moved him ahead of Reggie Leach into 10th place on the Flyers All-Time Scoring List.
Thursday, December 05, 2002
Méschda Hoschbess holy
...und nichts ist wie es scheint!!If you dropped the gloves in the office over an injustice and bloodied your boss, you'd get slapped with a lawsuit and five years in the tank. Drop the gloves in hockey and you get five minutes.
<<<<<<<<<<<...visit: broadstreetbully´s or the flyer´s seats or flyers.com>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sie sind vermutlich noch nicht im Forum angemeldet - Klicken Sie hier um sich kostenlos anzumelden
Offline
Darren McCarty RULES !!! 
offizielle STIGA-Tischhockey-NULL 
, also schon im Zweiten Drittel...
