Philadelphia gameday media...

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Expect Cup-craving Roenick to play tonight

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

A likely concussion unlikely to keep forward out
By KEVIN ROBERTS
Courier-Post Staff
TAMPA, Fla.


The smart money is on Jeremy Roenick playing tonight. Know that, first of all.

Everything past that is up in the air.

Roenick skated Monday in practice. Then he attended an NHL press conference, at which he was asked about his health. And he answered it by questioning why Wayne Gretzky left Keith Primeau off the Canadian World Cup team.

That's what happened. Twice.

This is the actual exchange, taken directly from the press conference:


Reporter: Jeremy, how are you feeling?

Roenick: I can't see how Gretzky kept Preems off the Canadian team. I am shocked. Utterly shocked. That's just insanity, in my opinion.

Second reporter, trying again: Uh, just to take another shot at this, how are you feeling, Jeremy?



Roenick: Gretzky is just crazy.
That's really a pretty good job of stonewalling a precarious line of questioning. And he acted like his usual lighthearted self Monday, making faces while Primeau was speaking and tossing in a trademark quip on occasion. But later, talking with a handful of beat writers in the hallway, Roenick allowed that all is not fun and games and joking around.

Roenick acknowledged that he is suffering from concussion-like symptoms. The official word is an upper-body injury, and it's been reported elsewhere that Roenick has a sprained shoulder (he does not). But the truth is that Roenick got his bell rung in the last game, and it's cause for concern.

He said he's had headaches for two days following a hit Saturday that knocked him out of Game 4. He said he didn't feel good. He didn't feel normal. And this is a bad time to be feeling a little fuzzy.

"The worst," Roenick said.

Roenick wouldn't quite classify himself as a sure thing tonight. He plans to skip the morning skate today and will make a decision at game time. But Roenick said, pointedly, he had another day to shake this and get himself ready.

Now. The Flyers are loathe to throw the word "concussion" out there. By Roenick's very unofficial count, that's 10. Whether you buy that count, or the Flyers' count, or some doctor's count, isn't relevant.

What is relevant is this - Roenick will take the ice tonight at something less than 100 percent. He's struggling. He didn't look especially sharp at practice, and even with the extra day to rest he might not be all the way back when the puck drops tonight.

But he'll play.

"JR is fine, and he'll play," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said, pretty matter-of-factly.

If it seems like Roenick and the head coach don't view this thing quite the same way, well, that's pretty much the case.

"I think any time a player gets hurt you are looking at body language," Hitchcock said. "You are looking at how he feels after exercise. So it's kind of step-by-step. We felt he would practice (Monday), and he did. He practiced well. But if there's some soreness and he doesn't feel good (Monday) night or (this) morning, then those are decisions we will have to make.

"But right now, if it's following the order that we want to, I would say that he would be in there, for sure."

Here's the thing - Roenick enjoys the drama. Always has. He's kept a weirdly low profile in this postseason (at one point, Roenick was actually giving interviews to talk about how he wasn't giving as many interviews), but Roenick enjoys the drama of the spotlight, and the soap opera of a can-he-or-can't-he-play decision.

That surely doesn't mean he's not seriously hurting. He is. This is a man coming off one of the most horrifying injuries in recent memory, the broken jaw he suffered in February. Roenick talked openly about retirement then, but was on the ice inside of six weeks. A blow to the head here - particularly one that caused him to sit out the third period of a playoff game - is certainly worth being concerned about.

But above all, Roenick wants to win. The Stanley Cup is the one thing he lacks on his resume. Roenick aches for it, he truly does. And so he plays on. And if he enjoys adding a little drama here and some intrigue there, that's OK.

Say this for Roenick - when he gets the sidebars all lined up, he's tough to beat. He's scored 11 points in this postseason, with two power-play goals and a team-leading 41 shots on goal. The Flyers need him, and Roenick knows it. So he'll play.

And headache or no, Roenick is sharp enough to do the math.

"Six more wins, and I won't have to worry about getting hit in the head anymore," Roenick said. "Except by a golf ball."

 

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Woozy defenseman Pitkanen is plainly a question mark

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

By KEVIN ROBERTS
Courier-Post Staff
TAMPA, Fla.

Joni Pitkanen - while not perpetuating as high-profile or potentially confusing an injury situation as Jeremy Roenick - is still a question mark for tonight's Game 5 against the Lightning.

Pitkanen was drilled midway through Game 4 in Philadelphia, left the game and did not return. Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said he was hopeful Pitkanen could play despite concussion-like symptoms, but the rookie defenseman did not skate in the Flyers' practice Monday morning.

"He only rode the bike," Hitchcock said. "That's the first step toward being ready to play. He's going to skate (today) and then we'll make the decision after the pregame skate."

If Pitkanen can't go, Dennis Seidenberg will slide into his spot on defense, itself a remarkable move in that Seidenberg is a late addition from the Phantoms who missed a big chunk of the season with a broken leg.

It shows how thin the Flyers really are on defense - that this sort of move is a genuine consideration, and that Pitkanen has gone from a player the Flyers were trying to hide (he's scored three points and is a minus-5 in the postseason) to a player the Flyers are hoping can make it.

"There's a question mark on Joni right now," Hitchcock said. "The question mark on Joni is time. How does he feel (today) after he's tested again? If he's going to feel improvement, then he should be good to go. But if not, then he's not going to be able to play."

Hitchcock was at least considering moving Sami Kapanen back to forward, especially if Roenick couldn't play. But the Flyers are so thin on defense that Kapanen is staying put, and he practiced on defense with Kim Johnsson Monday.

Danny Markov and Vladimir Malakhov are also getting a ton of minutes on defense, and Hitchcock allowed that at this time of year the top four defensemen are going to get most of the work. Hitchcock said the TV timeouts the team gets during the playoffs are allowing him to ride some players a little harder.



"Look, I think everybody knows right now that they are not playing six defensemen and we're not playing six defensemen," Hitchcock said. "We have got a couple of guys, the more we play them the better they play - Johnsson and Malakhov, so we can't lose sight of that. The other factor is, the league has instituted these long breaks during periods. I never thought of that at the start of the playoffs, but it's much easier to play a shorter bench now than at any time during the season."


Chirping: The banter between Hitchcock and Lightning coach John Tortorella has added some fire to this series, although Hitchcock said Monday it's all in fun - at least for him. Hitchcock compared deflecting Tortorella's criticisms to playing Whack-A-Mole - and Tortorella was plainly the Mole.
"That's the only thing I could win a prize on was that thing." Hitchcock said. "But I don't know. I mean, quite frankly, there's so much time between games, and most of us are pretty boring. I don't take it seriously.

"John is Italian, he's from Boston, he's probably a Red Sox fan. So he's got three strikes against him right there. For me, it's not a big deal. It's fun, you know? What the heck? He kind of picked the wrong horse going after Clarkie, though. Clarkie, he's got more of an angry side to him. Believe me, having coached six years in the Western Hockey League this is a day at the beach compared to what goes on there. So this is fun."

After Tortorella said Flyers GM Bobby Clarke spent too much time complaining about the officiating, Clarke called the Lightning coach "The Great Tortellini."

"He must have stayed up at night to think of something like that," Hitchcock said. "He's usually not that smart."


No Mo: The Eastern Conference playoffs have been played with more days off between games, a factor that may help the battered Flyers. But it may be tougher to build momentum given all the time off.
"Everybody talks about momentum in a playoff series," Flyers captain Keith Primeau said. "Could we build momentum off the last game? Can we build momentum off Game 4? Could they build the momentum off Game 3? I don't know if you can build on the kind of momentum that you've created in a winning Game 4 with two days off in between.

"You look at the other series in the Western Conference, and I think San Jose can build on momentum of an afternoon game (Sunday) and going home and playing (Monday). They're excited. They're energized. They have a real opportunity to take hold of the series. After our win, we've given (the Lightning) two days to gather themselves and refocus, so the challenge becomes even greater."

Hitchcock said the challenge is keeping the players focused.

"I think both teams would like to be playing right away," Hitchcock said. "I just find that this adds to the anxiety beyond belief. You have got way too much time to think about it. You are not getting in any type of rhythm and, at this time of year, it takes so much more energy to restart again. You start to feel your aches and pains. You start to think about how demanding it is."

 

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Two ex-coaches are rooting for Flyers to lose

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Upon leaving, Ramsay, Barber joined forces in Tampa Bay
By CHUCK GORMLEY
Courier-Post Staff



Craig Ramsay and Bill Barber have a lot more in common than simply being employed by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Both are former Flyers coaches who were unceremoniously fired by Flyers General Manager Bob Clarke.

Ask them now how they feel about being two wins away from clinching a berth in the Stanley Cup finals - a quest that continues tonight at the St. Pete Times Forum (7:30, ESPN2) - and they'll smile knowingly. But ask them if it might taste a little sweeter coming at the expense of Clarke and the Flyers and their lips are sealed.

"Bob and I spent some time together before Game 1," said Ramsay, the Lightning's 53-year-old associate coach. "I'm fine with Bob."

Ramsay is not, however, always fine with what Clarke says.

After the Flyers knotted the Eastern Conference finals with a 3-2 victory in Game 4 Saturday at the Wachovia Center, Clarke mockingly referred to Lightning coach John Tortorella as "The Great Tortollini," saying, "There are no mirrors in his house. It's always somebody else's fault."

Ramsay, who was fired as Flyers coach 28 games into the 2000-01 season, said Clarke's comments did not surprise him.

"He was always like that and he's not going to change," Ramsay said. "He's still the same guy; he plays hard on and off the ice."



Ramsay should know. As a 5-foot-10, 175-pound left wing with the Buffalo Sabres, Ramsay battled against the 5-10, 185-pound Clarke for 13 seasons. He was denied his only shot at a Stanley Cup when Clarke's Flyers beat his Sabres in six games in the 1975 finals.

Like this series, that series also was tied at 2-2 after four games. The Flyers, who had home-ice advantage, won Game 5 at home 5-1 and won the Cup in Buffalo two nights later with a 2-0 victory. While the image of Clarke and Bernie Parent skating around the old Buffalo Auditorium is etched fondly in the memories of Flyers fans, the same image is a disturbing one for Ramsay.

He has not been to the Stanley Cup finals since that May 27 evening, not as a player, nor as a coach, although he came close four years ago when he led the Flyers to within one win of the finals.

It was Ramsay who was behind the bench when the Flyers grabbed a three games to one lead on the New Jersey Devils in the 2000 conference finals. It was not Ramsay's decision to bring Eric Lindros back from a concussion for Game 6 of that series, which the Flyers eventually lost in seven games.

"That was a decision we had to make," Flyers Chairman Ed Snider said. "Eric said he could play. How could we not play him?"

The Flyers' collapse in that series did not cost Ramsay his job, but it certainly made it easier for Clarke to fire him when the Flyers started the 2000-01 season with a .500 record through 28 games.

"Rammer was a good coach," Flyers right wing Mark Recchi said. "He followed up on what Roger (Neilson) taught us. He was real big on sticks in the (passing) lanes and you see that a lot now with Tampa."

Ramsay admitted he was bitter about his firing in Philadelphia. It was his only experience as a head coach in the NHL and he has not been given the same opportunity anywhere in the NHL since his firing. Now in his third full season behind the Lightning bench, any animosity Ramsay had for Clarke and the Flyers has been replaced by a driving desire to beat them.

"There really is not (animosity)," Ramsay said. "This is a great place to be, one of the top four teams at this point in time. That's exciting for me. The fact that it's Philadelphia really doesn't hold any special meaning."

Barber's feelings for the Flyers run a little deeper. Two years ago he was fired as coach of the Flyers in an ugly and very public divorce in which players accused him of being a closed-minded dictator unresponsive to his players' suggestions.

Barber spent 27 years in the Flyers organization as a player, minor-league coach, director of pro scouting and assistant coach before finally realizing his dream of coaching in the NHL following Ramsay's firing.

But one year after winning the Jack Adams Trophy as NHL Coach of the Year in 2001, the Flyers fired Barber, four months after he lost his wife to lung cancer and one day after a public outcry from his players.

Hitchcock recalls stepping into that firestorm and the depth of the fans' anger over Barber's firing.

"Well, they didn't really like the whole situation that went down, because Billy was part of the family here," Hitchcock said.

Barber rejected an offer by Snider to remain with the Flyers and was hired a few months later by Lightning General Manager Jay Feaster, who was also Barber's general manager when he coached the Hershey Bears in 1995-96.

Now the Lightning's director of player personnel, Barber, 51, still holds a private grudge against some of those players who publicly challenged his ability to run a bench. But he's not about to go public with those feelings and probably never will.

"I'm not going there, I don't look back," said Barber, who won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Flyers and still ranks as the club's all-time leader in goals (420) and playoff goals (53).

"Don't get me wrong. They're a good team over there, but we've built a pretty good team here, too. And we did it the right way, by bringing guys up through the system. We couldn't just bring in guys when we had injuries. We don't have the money to do that."

Indeed, the Lightning's $33.5 million payroll this season pales in comparison to the Flyers' $65.2 million budget. But when the two teams take the ice tonight, both are expected to have just four players on their rosters that are original draft picks - Simon Gagne, Joni Pitkanen, Radovan Somik and Patrick Sharp for the Flyers and Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Pavel Kubina and Dmitry Afanasenkov for the Lightning.

"I know the Flyers have the experience factor going," Barber said, "but I like these guys. They are a gritty bunch and I know we'll give them a run for their money."

 

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PHILADELPHIA -- There is one, and only one, way for the Flyers to prove they are capable of winning a championship. That will come when Keith Primeau finally stops carrying his teammates and picks up the Stanley Cup instead.
That?s it. Nothing complicated. Either capture the Stanley Cup or admit that there were too many shortcomings to make it possible. Either option is reasonable at this point. The Flyers may be champions. Or they may not even make it through the weekend.

Soon enough, there will be an answer.




Until then, there will be the most unobstructed peephole yet available through which to catch at least a peak at the Flyers? souls.

Until then, there will be Game 5 of the NHL?s Eastern Conference finals tonight against the Lightning in Tampa.

While borderline clich? -- and mathematically fundamental -- that the fifth game in any best-of-seven is a VIP entrance to survival, this situation, for this team, on this night is an even more exclusive gateway to fulfillment. Why? Because technically, the Flyers do not have to win -- yet to do just that would suggest every layer of championship capability.

To this point in a series tied, 2-2, it would be accurate to observe that the team that more desperately needed to win a game has done exactly that. Tampa Bay had to make a Game 1 statement and did. The Flyers needed to exit Florida with at least one victory, and from Game 2, they did. Tampa Bay needed to deflate the Flyers and their fans in Game 3, and did. The Flyers could not afford to fall behind, 3-1, and with a demonstration of Game 4 courage, they didn?t.

Tonight, the desperation card belongs to the Lightning, which might as well not bother returning to the Wachovia Center Thursday should it be facing elimination. The Lightning -- heck, the players aren?t nuts, they know it -- virtually must win tonight to maintain reasonable championship hopes. The Flyers, even with a loss tonight, would be favored at home in Game 6 to force a single-elimination challenge. So, really, it is simple: To some degree of odd logic, the Flyers can afford to lose tonight.

But that?s why, if they are truly championship-ready, they will demonstrate it in a cascade of hockey excellence in unfriendly surroundings, even with that emotional cushion. Another way to put that would be to say the Flyers would act tonight the way the Devils always did along their path to three Stanley Cups. They will swagger into the Forum, execute with precision, hit with vigor, tend goal with mystical skill and swagger back out before the home fans could remember where they?d parked their cars.

Is that likely? Well, Vegas wouldn?t necessarily buy it.

Is that possible? Yes -- yes, it is. It is because the Flyers are more experienced, deeper, more versatile, further along in their development as a program, more hardened by recent postseason disappointment and, this time, led by a captain whose proclamation of a mission is more than just dressing-room babble. Mostly, it is possible because the Flyers might -- they just might -- be a truly great team, and truly great teams win in these types of spots.

"The challenge for us is to build something off a great win," Hitchcock said Wednesday. "We had a great performance in Game 4 and we had the same performance in Game 2, but we weren?t able to build on it. That?s the thing that impresses you about both teams. Both teams have responded with the sense of desperation after a loss and that?s why we?re the ones that feel like we have to change a little bit here if we want to win this series because, you know, we don?t want to let them build back something that we kind of took away a little bit in Game 4."

Tough as both teams have played, the series has been reminiscent of the early jabbing in a prize fight. Four rounds later, no one is even staggering. The great champions, though, unload that knockout punch without warning. And since a victory is not necessarily expected of the Flyers tonight -- let alone required -- it is exactly why it is their time to reveal that angle of their personality.

To some degree, they have done that already, winning a critical Game 5 in the conference semifinals, then chasing it with an overtime victory in Game 6 at Toronto. The dismissal of the Devils in five easy payments, too, was an indication that there was just a little something different about these Flyers.

But this is the conference final. The winner goes to the NHL?s Super Bowl. One of four remaining teams will be the world professional champion. It?s just a matter now of making that statement.

"As a team going through a seven-game series, you want to win every game, obviously, as quickly as you can to try to get to four," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "But because you lose, you don?t go into a panic."

Don?t buy that. If the Lightning loses tonight, it must win its next two ... so it will panic. And that?s why this is the Flyers? moment -- now, not later -- to deliver the KO punch.

Marv Levy, the football coach who never found a Super Bowl he couldn?t lose, once observed that there really was only one must-win situation, and that it was World War II. That means the Flyers are not in must-win straits tonight. If they truly are great, Levy will be right and they won?t be in must-win straits the next time they play, either.

Jack McCaffery , Tims Sports Columnist