Flyers End Skid

The Philadelphia Flyers liked their start a lot more than their finish. In the end, they wound up with a much needed victory.

Keith Primeau scored just 12 seconds in and Simon Gagne had three assists as the Flyers snapped a seven-game winless streak with a 5-4 victory over the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.

"For the first seven or eight games, I wasn`t doing too much," Primeau said. "I was analyzing and thinking and not doing the things I do well."

The Flyers, who were 0-5-2 after beating Vancouver on opening night, also got goals from Jody Hull, Daymond Langkow, Justin Williams and Peter White. Philadelphia squandered leads in its last two games -- a loss and a tie. The Rangers scored two late goals to close within 5-4, but the Flyers held on.

"We don`t want to get too negative about it," said Flyers goalie Brian Boucher, who made 21 saves. "They got some breaks and ended up getting some goals but all in all we`re happy with it."

Jan Hlavac, Brian Leetch, Adam Graves and Valeri Kamensky scored for the Rangers, who fell to 3-4 overall and 1-3 at home.

Mark Recchi, who missed four games with headaches before playing Saturday, participated in the team`s skate Tuesday morning but felt ill about two hours before the game and was scratched.

The Flyers, already missing injured forwards John LeClair, Keith Jones and defenseman Chris Therien, had only 19 skaters when the puck was dropped.

They didn`t seem to mind as Primeau forced Mark Messier to turn the puck over along the offensive left boards just after the opening faceoff. Primeau swooped in on net and beat goalie Kirk McLean inside the left post.

That set the tone for the Rangers. "We can`t be that fragile, though," coach Ron Low said. "If we`re that fragile, then we`re not going to go anywhere anyway."

Hull, playing his first game since spraining his shoulder in the preseason, scored at 6:56 of the first period to make it 2-0 after Primeau got him the puck from behind the Rangers net.

Philadelphia closed out its dominating first period, in which the Flyers outshot the Rangers 13-4, when Langkow corralled the rebound of Michal Sykora`s shot and scored on a power play that made it 3-0.

"It`s up to each guy to come ready to play," said Rangers forward Theo Fleury, who had a four-game goal-scoring streak snapped. "Philly is a big, strong, physical team and we didn`t start hitting them until it was 2-0."

The Rangers turned it around in the second period when Hlavac scored at 4:03, and Leetch added a power-play goal at 15:23.

But, despite having only four shots in the period, the Flyers restored their two-goal lead when Williams scored with only 1:06 left.

"That`s where we`ll build from," Primeau said. "Before we weren`t going for the kill. We got caught flat-footed a little bit but we were able to turn things back up."

White scored at 1:54, with Hlavac off for interference. Gagne sent a pass out from the right boards that struck White`s leg and got past McLean, who only made 14 saves.

Graves made it 5-3 at 14:36 with his second goal this season and 272nd with the Rangers to tie Andy Bathgate for third place on the club`s career list. With McLean pulled, Kamensky made it 5-4 with only 13 seconds left.

Philadelphia`s Ruslan Fedotenko arrived from the minors about four minutes in. Fedotenko was an emergency callup from the Flyers` American Hockey League affiliate, also located in Philadelphia. He made his NHL debut with 12 minutes left in the first.

Notes:
Wayne Gretzky, waiting to assume partial ownership of the Phoenix Coyotes, and his wife Janet Jones were in attendance. ... Boucher, who led the league in goals-against average last season as a rookie, did not start the last two games in favor of Roman Cechmanek. ... Graves was moved to the third line and Kamensky moved up to the top line. Michal Grosek was scratched and John MacLean played his second game this season. ... The Flyers have not kept an opponent under three goals this season.

Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Article continues below

---

advertisement

---

Author: AP