An almost-daily look back at how the Philadelphia Flyers have fared on this day, recalling some of the more memorable moments, achievements, and events that shaped the organization throughout the club’s storied history
Heading into tonight’s contest with the Boston Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center, the Flyers have posted a 13-7-5-1 record in 26 games played on this day in club history. This will be the third November 29 meeting between Philadelphia and the Bruins — with all three being played in Philly — with the first going to the Flyers (5-1, 1988 at the Spectrum), and the most recent a Boston overtime win (3-2, 2001 at the First Union Center).
1969 — Jean-Guy Gendron scored a second period goal just 36 seconds after Juha Widing had given New York a 2-1 lead in an eventual 2-2 deadlock with the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Bernie Parent made 30 saves — including 13 in a third period dominated by the home team — to steal a point for Philadelphia.
1970 — Andre Lacroix notched his third career hat trick and figured in on all four Flyers’ goals, while Bernie Parent made 19 saves in recording his 50th win in the Orange-and-Black in a 4-2 triumph over the Vancouver Canucks at the Spectrum.
Lacroix scored once in the first and twice in the middle frame to give Philadelphia a 3-1 lead at the second intermission, then assisted on Jean-Guy Gendron’s power play insurance marker midway through the third.
Defenseman Barry Ashbee assisted on two of the Flyer goals.
1973 — A furious Flyers’ attack in the final twenty minutes paid off as Bill Barber beat Eddie Giacomin with 3:06 remaining in the third period and Bernie Parent stopped 24 of 26 shots to salvage a 2-2 draw with the New York Rangers at the Spectrum. Philadelphia was all over Giacomin in the third, outshooting the Rangers 21-6 in the stanza.
1975 — Reggie Leach scored a goal for a third straight contest, but George Ferguson knotted the game midway through the second period in a 1-1 tie with the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens. The goaltending was the story of the game with Philadelphia’s Wayne Stephenson making 37 saves, and Toronto’s Wayne Thomas thwarting 42 of 43 Flyers’ attempts.
1977 — Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish, and Don Saleski each scored goals, and Bernie Parent turned aside all 25 shots sent his direction in a 3-0 whitewash of the Vancouver Canucks at Pacific Coliseum.
The shutout was the 42nd regular season blanking for Parent as a Flyer.
1979 — Kenny Linseman snapped a 3-3 deadlock early in the third period as the Flyers came back from two goals down twice in a 6-4 victory over the Minnesota North Stars at the Spectrum, extending ‘The Streak’ to 19 games without a loss (16-0-3).
Trailing 2-0 in the first period, Rick MacLeish drew Philadelphia back to within a goal with his first of the contest. But former-Flyer Al MacAdam restored Minnesota’s two-goal lead less than two minutes later, before goals by MacLeish and Paul Holmgren in the middle frame knotted the game at 3-3 at the second intermission.
Linseman was sent to the sin bin for a tripping minor shortly after giving Philly their first lead of the contest, but Reggie Leach beat Gilles Meloche for a shorthanded marker to make it a 5-3 Flyers’ lead. Bill Barber closed out the scoring late in the third after the North Stars had again pulled back to within one.
Rookie goalie Pete Peeters finished with 26 saves to win his third consecutive decision, and remained unbeaten (9-0-1) for the season.
1980 — Bill Barber scored a pair of goals and Rick MacLeish added another to give the Flyers a 3-0 lead after one period of play, but Vancouver came back with three unanswered goals in the middle stanza in an eventual 3-3 tie with the Canucks at Pacific Coliseum.
1983 — Tim Kerr scored twice and assisted on two other goals while Brian Propp added two goals and three points as the Flyers blasted the Calgary Flames by an 8-5 count at the Saddledome.
Trailing 3-2 after one period, coach Bob McCammon pulled Pelle Lindbergh in favor of Bob Froese to begin the second. Propp scored his second of the game early in the frame and Rich Sutter gave Philadelphia their first lead 21 seconds later.
After Dave Hindmarch managed to knot the score at 4-4, the Flyers took the lead for good on tallies from Miroslav Dvorak and Rick MacLeish to take a 6-4 lead into the final session.
Kerr made it a three-goal advantage just over a minute into the third, and Ron Sutter notched a shorthanded tally a little more than two minutes later to put the game away.
Froese ended up with 22 saves over the final 40 minutes to record his fifth victory of the year, while Darryl Sittler, Doug Crossman, and Glen Cochrane each chipped in with a pair of helpers apiece.
1985 — Ilkka Sinisalo scored twice and Bob Froese turned away 24 of 25 shots as the Flyers rolled to their third win in a row in a 4-1 decision over the Minnesota North Stars at the Met Center. Dave Brown and Derrick Smith also scored for Philadelphia.
1986 — Rick Tocchet’s second goal of the game broke a 5-5 tie with 32 seconds remaining in regulation to offset a Mike Bossy hat trick and give the Flyers a wild 6-5 triumph over the New York Islanders at Nassau County Coliseum.
Tim Kerr scored twice, Murray Craven and Scott Mellanby once each, while Mark Howe added three assists.
Rookie Ron Hextall made 28 saves to record his fifth consecutive win, and extended his unbeaten streak to eight straight contests (7-0-1). The fiery netminder also posted a pair of assists, and upped his overall record to 15-3-2 for the season.
1988 — Rick Tocchet posted two goals and an assist and Ron Hextall stopped 19 of 20 shots to lead the Flyers to a 5-1 triumph over the Boston Bruins at the Spectrum.
Tocchet scored both of his goals in special teams situations in the first period, one while Philadelphia was shorthanded and the other while the Flyers were skating with a man advantage.
Terry Carkner, Mike Bullard (who was acquired earlier in the day from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for Peter Zezel), and Tim Kerr also managed to beat Andy Moog, while former-Flyer Andy Brickley was the lone Bruin to put the puck past Hextall.
1995 — Brent Fedyk tied the game early in the third period and Kevin Haller provided the game-winner with 30 seconds left in overtime to back a 27-save performance from Ron Hextall in a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers at Miami Arena.
Philadelphia had been outshot by a wide 21-8 margin heading into the third period, but only trailed 1-0 thanks to the play of Hextall,
The Flyers turned things around in the final stanza as they poured 12 shots on John Vanbiesbrouck to force the deadlock, then outshot the Panthers by an 8-1 count in the extra frame to pull out the win.
1998 — John LeClair netted four goals and Philadelphia scored five times in the third period to beat former-Flyer Garth Snow and the Vancouver Canucks 6-2 at the First Union Center.
LeClair potted his first of the contest early in the second period, but Philadelphia found themselves trailing 2-1 at the second intermission.
That’s when the line of LeClair, Eric Lindros, and Keith Jones went to work.
LeClair knotted the game 50 seconds into the stanza, then completed a hat trick to give the Flyers their first lead of the game with 5:07 remaining. Jones then made it a two-goal lead 47 seconds later, before LeClair tallied for a fourth time and Chris Gratton managed to net his first of a frustrating year.
The line of LeClair (four goals), Lindros (five assists), and Jones (goal, assist) accounted for five goals and 11 points, giving the trio eight goals and 20 points in their last two outings. Not so coincidentally, Philly also improved to 6-1-0 since acquiring Jones from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Shjon Podein two weeks earlier.
2000 — Mark Recchi scored two third period goals — including the game-winner with 59 seconds remaining — as the Flyers erased a late-second period two-goal deficit in a 4-3 triumph over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.
With Philadelphia trailing 3-1 in the waning minutes of the middle stanza, Keith Primeau beat Ron Tugnutt to make it a one-goal game heading into the third.
Brian Boucher made 23 saves to record his second consecutive win, while Ruslan Fedotenko assisted on both of Recchi’s third period markers.
2001 — Mark Recchi’s goal midway through the third period knotted the game at 2-2, but Josef Stumpel beat Roman Cechmanek 3:22 into overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 3-2 victory at the First Union Center.
2003 — John LeClair posted a goal and an assist in a five-goal second period that propelled the Flyers to their 12th straight game without a loss (10-0-2) in a 5-1 triumph over the New York Islanders at Nassau County Coliseum.
Former-Flyer Janne Niinimaa gave the Isles a 1-0 lead at the first intermission, but goals from LeClair, Mark Recchi, Donald Brashear, Simon Gagne, and Justin Williams against starter Rick DiPietro blew the game wide open for the visitors.
Jeff Hackett had a relatively light workload as he turned away 16 of 17 New York shots to extend his unbeaten string to six games (5-0-1) as Philadelphia improved to 14-2-1 for the season.
2005 — Simon Gagne scored his second goal of the game with just over seven minutes remaining in regulation to snap a 3-3 tie and give the Flyers a 4-3 win over the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum. The pair of goals gave Gagne a league-leading 23 in his 23rd game, and helped Philadelphia overcome a pair of two goal deficits.
First period markers from Miroslav Satan and Jason Blake staked the home team to a 2-0 lead after one, but the Flyers got one back on a Patrick Sharp tally midway through the second stanza. Mark Parrish upped the Isles’ lead to 3-1 less than two minutes later with a man advantage before Joni Pitkanen struck with a power play goal of his own with 5:26 remaining. Gagne tied things up with 1:14 left in the frame, when he knocked home a rebound during a netmouth scramble that began with a Kim Johnsson point shot.
Robert Esche made 20 saves to snap a personal three-game losing skid (0-2-1), and may have gotten a bit lucky when it appeared the Islanders had tied the game with less than a second left on the third period clock. Video replay was deemed inconclusive, and N.Y. centerman Alexei Yashin said after the game that the referee apologized to him for blowing the whistle before the puck had crossed the goal line.
2006 — R.J. Umberger scored the game-tying goal with 6:31 remaining, but Mike Rathje fanned on a clearing attempt and Paul Kariya took advantage of the turnover by feeding Martin Erat for the game-winner less than a minute and a half later in a 3-2 Nashville Predators victory at the Wachovia Center.
The loss snapped Philadelphia’s two-game winning streak, which at the time tied the longest stretch of good fortune for the club that would go on to post the worst record in franchise history.
2013 — Sean Couturier scored a shorthanded goal early in the second period that would hold up as the game-winner as Philadelphia took a 2-1 decision from the Winnipeg Jets in a Black Friday contest that began at 11:30 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Center.
Scott Hartnell opened the scoring just 48 seconds after the opening faceoff, before Couturier doubled the home team’s lead with Andrej Meszaros in the penalty box early in the middle stanza. The Flyers’ centerman had been stopped on an incredible right pad save by Jets’ netminder Ondrej Pavelec on a first period breakaway, but he got another chance when he stole a Dustin Byfuglien point-to-point pass intended for Tobias Enstrom and was off to the races. Couturier cut in from the left wing side and flipped a backhander past Pavelec against the grain and into the cage.
Steve Mason — who finished with 25 saves, losing his shutout bid on a Michael Frolik goal with just under eight minutes remaining in regulation — improved his record to 5-1-1 in his last seven starts.
November 29 Flyers’ trades
1985 — The Flyers acquired forward Bo Berglund and defenseman Dave Richter in exchange for disgruntled forward Todd Bergen and rugged blue liner Ed Hospodar. While the other three did little with their new clubs (and Hospodar eventually returned to Philadelphia), Bergen was the most interesting case study of the players involved in the deal. The 6′ 3″, 190-pounder was selected in the fifth round (98th-overall) of the 1982 draft, and appeared to be another big offensive weapon added to an arsenal that already included the likes of Tim Kerr, Brian Propp, Ilkka Sinisalo, Rick Tocchet, Murray Craven, and Peter Zezel. At 21 years of age, Bergen notched 11 goals and 16 points in a late 1984/85 14-game stint, then posted four goals and 13 points in 17 playoff games as part of the Flyers’ run to the 1985 Final. But Bergen grew weary of head coach Mike Keenan’s motivational tactics, and felt the team didn’t believe him when he suffered an abdominal injury. Despite the club’s failed attempts to find the problem through x-rays, the hole in his abdominal muscles wouldn’t be discovered until after his trade to Minnesota. By the time of the diagnosis, the muscles had experienced atrophy and the promising career of a young, would-be sniper was snuffed out prematurely.
1988 — The Flyers sent popular center Peter Zezel to the St. Louis Blues for Mike Bullard. Zezel was the club’s second-round selection (41st-overall) in the 1983 draft, and posted 91 goals and 261 points in 310 regular season games in Philadelphia. He recorded personal highs during the 1986/87 campaign, notching 33 goals and 72 points, but had an off-year the following season and had slumped to just four goals and 17 points in 26 games when he was dealt. Zezel registered 10 goals and 31 points in 56 postseason contests with the Orange-and-Black, and was a member of the 1985 and 1987 Stanley Cup Final squads.
Bullard was something of a talented journeyman by the time he came to the Flyers, having a 50-goal season with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1983/84, and posting a 48-goal, 100+ point year with the Calgary Flames in 1987/88. He made an immediate offensive impact in Philadelphia, scoring goals in his first two contests and in four of the first five. In 124 regular season games over two seasons with the Flyers, Bullard recorded 50 goals, 113 points and 127 PIMs. He posted three goals, 12 points, and 32 PIMs in 19 playoff outings during Philly’s march to the 1989 Eastern Conference Final, but was not offered a contract after the following regular season when the team failed to qualify for the postseason for the first time the 1971/72 campaign. He played one year in Switzerland before his NHL rights were traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a conditional draft pick.
