Six Past Players Who Would’ve Been Great Flyers
There are times you watch a hockey game and think, “Man, I wish he was on our team.” Thinking back on the players that I grew up with in the 90s and early 2000s, there are some guys that I know would’ve been fan favorite Flyers. So, thinking of some of these sort of players, I came up with a front forward line, a solid defensive line, and even a goalie who would’ve been fun to watch.
Now, before I begin, I am staying away from Hall of Famers. Of course it would’ve been easy to say, “Well, imagine a line of Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Joe Sakic up front”. No kidding. That’s not much of a stretch there buddy. Way to go out on a limb there.
I’ve tried to focus on players who were tough and all out. Some may have been all-stars or all-star caliber. Some are not. Others may be, because of how they played, the sort of scrappy guys that Flyers fans would cheer for. So, let’s see who would’ve been great in Orange and Black.
The Forwards
Matthew Barnaby
I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Are you serious? Matt Barnaby? The same guy who used to wail on Eric Lindros and others? One of the dirtiest players in the league?” Yep….that guy.
I used to hate him too. I thought he was one of the dirtiest players in the game, right up there with Tie Domi, Rob Ray, and Darius Kasparaitis. He also played for some of our biggest rivals, including the Penguins, Rangers, and Sabres.
He was also involved in my all-time favorite hockey fight. The Flyers were playing the Sabres on March 29, 1996. Shawn Antoski shoved Barnaby into the net and Barnaby collapsed on the ice. Brad May then starts a fight with Antoski. While they are going at in, Garth Snow starts poking Barnaby with his stick. Barnaby, who was playing possum, jumps up and attacks Snow. Rod Brind’amour comes over and gives it to Barnaby. It was a great fight.
So why would I say that he’d be a great Flyer? A few years later, Barnaby was a commentator on the Versus Channel (which would later become NBC Sports). A Flyers game was on and he was doing the in period analysis. While talking, he said something to the effect of, “I’ve never played in Philadelphia, but I would’ve loved it. I know the fans there didn’t like me much, but I think they would had I got to play for them. Their intensity was always awesome. and it was always fun to play there.”
My opinion of him changed then and there. Sure, I still couldn’t stand the guy, but he was right. Had he been a Flyer, I would’ve loved him. In an era where there were many great pests, agitators, and goons, he was one of the best. He was an intimidating player and having an enforcer like him to watch Lindros’s back, maybe he could’ve protected him from the Scott Stevens’s of the world.
Michael Peca
Speaking of the Buffalo Sabres, there were two players who lifted the Sabres into hockey prominence in the late 90s. One was their insanely good goalie, Dominik Hasek. The other was their star center, Michael Peca. The Sabres acquired Peca as part of a package that sent scoring wizard Alexander Mogilny to the Canucks.
Peca spent five years in Buffalo, scoring 96 goals and tallying 121 assists. He could deliver hits, but, unlike his teammates Barnaby and Ray, was not dirty. He was a two-time winner of the Selke Trophy as best defensive forward.
As the Sabres ran into financial troubles, they began to sell off some of their assets while they could. Hasek would be traded and so would Peca. Buffalo sent him to the Islanders. He scored 25 goals in his first season as he won his second Selke Trophy and took the Isles to their first playoff run in seven years.
In the following season, the Islanders returned to the playoffs. He was hit by Darcy Tucker and blew out his ACL and MCL on his left knee. As a result, the NHL made clipping a penalty. Without his speed, he was never the same afterwards, although he would score six goals as a member of the Edmonton Oilers when they made a run for the Stanley Cup in 2005-06 before falling to the Hurricanes.
Peca was a gritty forwards. He was a faster version of Sean Couturier. He always played with his heart and left it all out there on the ice. That is always the sort of player that gets the fans excited in Philadelphia. As a result, he would’ve been very popular here.
Theoren Fleury
He was 5’6″ and 180 lbs in an era where then general manager Bobby Clarke put together rosters of Flyers teams that averaged 6’0″ and 200 lbs. But Theo Fleury was someone who survived in the league because of his speed. He won a Stanley Cup as a youngster in Calgary and was an all-star seven times in a decade where size and scoring flourished. Still, if you watched him play, you’d understand why he was so great. He was also the fastest player in the EA Sports NHL games in the 90s.
In a 15 year career, he scored 364 goalies, topping 40 goals four times, including 51 in 1990-91, where he also put up 104 total points. Speaking of that, he topped 80 points a total of five times.
Fleury battled drug and alcohol addiction for many years and it led to him being suspended near the end of his career. Still, he was one of the great players of the 1990s. His ability to go end to end and score almost at will made him a fearsome forward to defend against.
I can’t help but think had be played on a line with Lindros and John LeClair, or alongside of Brind’Amour on the second line, the Flyers would’ve had a speedy threat needed to crack the physical defenses of teams like the New Jersey Devils that always seemed to stymie them in the playoffs. Despite his size, he could skate and he could play. He would’ve been a lot of fun to watch here.
Roman Hamrlík
He was the number one overall pick in 1992, the first pick ever selected by the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the first Czech ever selected first overall. Roman Hamrlík was a solid wall of 6’2″, 220 lbs of muscle that crushed everything in his way. When the Flyers and Lightning faced off for the first time in the 1995-96 playoffs, he was hitting anything with an orange and black jersey.
And yet, in an era of very physical players, he never had a reputation for being dirty. He just leveled devastatingly clean hits on opposing forwards. He was a three time all-star for the Lightning and helped to take this expansion team from a bunch of misfits into respectability.
After leaving the Bolts in 1998 in a trade to Edmonton, he would bounce around the league for a while. He would play for the Islanders, Flames, Canadiens, Capitals, and Rangers in a career that would last 20 years. He spent a career averaging over 20 minutes of ice time, something ever team wants out of their defenders if they can get it. He was a solid, consistent blueliner.
While he didn’t put up the eye popping numbers of Ray Borque or Paul Coffey or combine skill and scoring with someone like Chris Pronger, he was a reliable defender. He would’ve made a great defender on a team in the late 90s and early 00s that sometimes struggled on the blueline.
Glen Wesley
Wesley had a 20 year career and was an all-star one time. He played in four Stanley Cups, winning it with the Hurricanes in 2006. He was not flashy or dominant. And while he was never a physically intimidating guy, as a junior he was involved in the famous “Punch-up in Piestany” where the Russian team and the Canadian team fought for 20 minutes and both teams got ejected from the tournament, as was Fleury
After seven years in Boston, he was traded to the Hartford Whalers, who would soon move to Carolina. He was a decent scoring defender in Boston, with a career high of 19 in his second season. After being traded to Hartford, he never scored more than eight goals nor topped 35 points in a season. But that wasn’t his skill.
His skill was being a frustratingly good stay at home defender. Until the last few years of his career, when he was in his late 30s, he was averaging well over 20 minutes of ice time a game. He has a career plus/minus of +66. He also topped 70 penalty minutes twice in a 20 year career.
That is the sort of consistency you want from a defenseman. He wasn’t the greatest defender of his generation, but he was steady. The Hurricanes retired his number 2 after his 13 years of service and leadership to the team. That is the sort of guy the Flyers could’ve used, especially in the early 2000s.
Félix Potvin
For years, I remembered hearing that the Flyers were going to flip Ron Hextall for either Potvin or Curtis Joseph. I’m not sure if there was any truth to the rumors or if the Maple Leafs were just trying to drive up the price for these netminders at the time. Maybe it was Clarke’s way of trying to motivate our goalie tandems of Hextall/Snow/John Vanbiesbrouck to play better.
Still, if “The Cat” would’ve come to Philly, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing. In his rookie season, he finished third in the Calder Trophy, behind Joe Juneau and trophy winner Teemu Selanne and fourth in the Vezina Trophy to winner Ed Belfour. He led the league with a 2.50 GAA with a .910 save percentage. In his first five seasons, he never posted a GAA above 3.15 or a save percentage less than 90%. His quickness, especially side to side, made him one of the premier young goalies in the early 90s.
With the Leafs defensive core getting older in front of him, he started to face more shots, leading the league with 2438 shot attempts, 2214 saves, and 224 goals scored in 96-97. Toronto signed free agent goalie Joseph and traded Potvin to the Islanders who would later flip him to Vancouver. Injuries, as is often the case, began to take their toll on him and after winning 266 games in 13 years, he retired. He spent his last few years on poor teams, but still put up respectable numbers.
But what if? What if Clarke traded Hextall for Potvin? OR what if the Flyers had a goalie tandem of Hextall and Potvin, which would lead to Potvin and Boucher? Could that have put the Flyers over the top in the late 90s? A defense lead by Eric Desjardins, Chris Therien. Petr Svoboda, Luke Richards, and Dan McGillis would’ve been a much better force than many of what Potvin had ahead of him in his career. Maybe had the move been made, we would’ve seen Lindros and Mark Recchi lift the Cup aloft. Alas, we’ll never know. But he would’ve been a decent goalie for us.
Roundup
None of these guys are hall of famers, although Fleury is a borderline guy. Some, like Peca and Wesley, were steady players who provided a lot of leadership to their teams. Some, like Barnaby and Hamrlík, brought the hammer down on opposing players. Maybe they could’ve helped bring a Stanley Cup parade to Broad Street. Maybe not. But still, these players would’ve been great as Flyers back in the day.