Flyers Notes | Clarke asking more from Primeau
By Tim Panaccio
Inquirer Staff Writer

OTTAWA, Ontario - Twenty-five goals. That's the number Flyers general manager Bob Clarke says Keith Primeau should score this season, regardless of the lack of output by his team.

"That's good to hear," Primeau said before last night's game against the Ottawa Senators. "I appreciate it. That is conservative. I know I've got to have 25. And I realize I have to put more shots up and work to get into better scoring areas and generate more chances."

Primeau had scored just eight goals going into the game.

There's an axiom in hockey that is as true today as it was 85 years ago, when the NHL was born: If you don't shoot, you can't score.

And therein lies the problem. Primeau had taken just 14 shots in his last nine games.

"I average about two shots a game, so if it's 14, yeah, that's under it," the Flyers' captain said. "I feel good, and I'm in better position around the net. I can get some rebounds there."

Primeau said that he feels more comfortable than he did earlier this season.

"I just have to start scoring," he said. "I feel a lot more comfortable when I'm playing with [Mark] Recchi."

That has been a problem, too.

When left winger John LeClair went out of the lineup with a dislocated right shoulder in late November, coach Ken Hitchcock had to start juggling personnel.

Primeau lost Recchi as his linemate and began playing with Simon Gagne, who has been slumping this season, and Justin Williams - the two guys center Jeremy Roenick prefers to have on his line.

Primeau played 11 games with "the kids," as Roenick calls them. In seven of them, he didn't register a point. That was in November.

In December, Primeau has been everywhere, centering lines at times and also playing left wing with center Marty Murray or, last night, Andre Savage. In recent games, Hitchcock has reunited Primeau with Recchi.

Recchi recently suggested to Hitchcock that the best way to get Primeau going would be to keep the two of them together.

"When I play with [Recchi], I feel more comfortable, and [last night] I'm back on wing again with [Recchi], but [Savage] is supposed to start between us. But there's no question I feel comfortable with Mark. And I've gotten a few points in recent games with him."

The Flyers will have the next two days off, then leave for an 11-day, six-game road trip to the Southwest and the West Coast. It remains to be seen whether the Primeau-Recchi combo will last.

Loose pucks. Clarke said last night that left winger Todd Fedoruk did not have a concussion but a bad headache and that he was fine now. "He'll come on the trip," Clarke said. The GM said that he did not submit a tape to the NHL of the illegal hit by the Senators' Mike Fisher that injured Fedoruk on Saturday, forcing him to get 40 stitches in his face and head. "If Fedoruk doesn't like what happened to him, he'll play Ottawa again," Clarke said. "It's not up to me to go after a player. He can take care of himself."... Guillaume Lefebvre will go on the Western trip because right winger Pavel Brendl is still out with a charley horse in his right leg.

So far, holy!!

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.

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Sieht so aus als hätte dein Posting geholfen. Keeeeeiiiiiiiiith hat in den letzten beiden Spielen jeweils ein Tor erziehlt. Gestern sogar das GWG.

John LeClair breaks down the left wing all alone, moves into the circle and cranks a wicked slap shot with zero hesitation. The baffled goaltender is left with no answers, just questions as the First Union Center's horn blazes and the crowd booms.