This may not be a hot new flash for you, but Philadelphia sports fans are super passionate. The passion that drives us forward with our teams also fuels the intense hate we have for others. Eagles fans hate anything to do with the Cowboys, and to a lesser extent the Giants and Commanders. Phillies fans have deep issues with the Dodgers, Mets, and Braves. Sixers fans have a long term grudge with the Celtics.
For Flyers fans, we have our enemies. Much like other Philly teams, any team from New York is an automatic trigger. The Rangers are the biggest culprits there, but the Islanders had their brief place in the sun. The Devils and Flyers had a nasty rivalry from the mid 90s to the late 00s (also known as the Broduer Era). The Penguins, being cross-state opponents, are always up for a good intense rivalry. Every now and then, a team like the Bruins or Canadiens, come along, usually due to a nasty playoff history. However, in the late 90s, there was a rivalry that was just utterly explosive. I, for one, miss it completely.
You had two teams that were on the ups. On one hand, you had the Flyers: John LeClair, Eric Lindros, Rod Brind'Amour, Joel Otto, Eric Desjardins, Chris Therein, Mikael Renberg, and Ron Hextall (among others). In the other corner: Domink Hasek, Rob Ray, Matthew Barnaby, Michael Peca, Miroslav Satan, Dave Andreychuk, and Pat LaFontaine (again, among others).
Before the 90s, the Sabres were kind of a garbage franchise. They had fallen to the Flyers in their lone Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 1975. Between the 1983-84 season and the 1992-93 season, Buffalo either missed the playoffs or were a first round exit. In the 1993 playoff run, they swept the Boston Bruins to advance for the first time in a decade. While they struggled to advance past the first round over the next few seasons, they built up a team based on toughness. Why?
They saw the league was getting bigger and badder. This was the time of the big goons. Eddie Olczyk, Chris Chelios, Tie Domi, Darius Kasparaitis, Ulf Samuelsson, and others roamed the ice. They targeted the stars of other teams. To retaliate, you had one of your own. So, if you wanted to make sure Wayne Gretzky was protected, you had Marty McSorley on your bench. And yes, while the Lindros could handle himself, the team had guys like Todd Fedoruk, Shawn Antoski, and Kevin Haller to deliver a fine "how-do-you do-hit" if your guy was doing too much.
Birth of a Bitter Rivalry
By the time you get to the Philly-Buffalo rivalry in 1994-95, you have to remember that these two teams were on a collision course of destiny. Both teams had goalies that were great, but also a bit unhinged. Ron Hextall had a reputation for being "scrappy" (ask Chelios about that one). Hasek was a young goalie for the Sabres who could just as easily snap, despite being one of the top three goalies in the NHL during the 90s. The Legion of Doom line helped to bring a Flyers' resurgence to the top. Likewise, the Sabres went with a tougher, grittier, grind it out style of play. They didn't have the scoring power of other teams, but would wear you down with a neutral zone trap style of play that was uberphysical.
There was another side of it too that must be addressed. While physical, the Sabres weren't as big as the Flyers were, or most other teams. That didn't matter. Guys like Barnaby and Ray's job were to instigate penalties. They would chirp, hit, spear, slash, elbow, etc. All they could get away with in order to induce a retaliation
The Flyers were clearly the better team. HOWEVER, that did not stop the Sabres. They knew they'd go down hard, but you'd be feeling it when you left. In the five game series, the Sabres had 80 penalty minutes compared to 70 for Philly. Each game was pretty tight, with no game being separated by more than two goals. It was a hard fought series and both teams left everything on the ice.
Things Heat Up
After missing the postseason the next year, the Sabres and Flyers met in the 1997 playoffs. But before we can talk about that series, we have to talk about the beef that had been building up. The Sabres didn't forget that 1995 series and what could've been. They began to step up their attacks, especially focusing a lot of their energy on Lindros. Barnaby became a particular thorn in Philly's side with his dirty hits, flopping, and instigation. Nothing was more pronounced than what I consider to be the greatest fight ever in Flyers history.
In March 1996, a year after their first playoff series and a year before the rematch, the Flyers were visiting the Sabres. It started with the normal chippy kind of play and then kind of got out of hand. You can see in the video below that Barnaby gets frisky with Garth Snow, the Flyers goalie (who made Hextall look like a calm individual). It then explodes into an all-out brawl. The sad thing is, this video is the longest one I can find on this fight...it went on a lot longer. They actually had to cancel the last few seconds of the second period and tack in on to the third period because they couldn't stop fighting.
All told, the two teams combined for 140 minutes in penalties. Players were ejected. Good times.
Well, back to the 1997 playoffs. That bad blood had reached a boiling point. Throughout the 96-97 season, when these two teams met, they played all out with the intent to hurt each other. The two teams met in the second round of the playoffs. In the very first game of the series, Snow was in net vs Steve Sheilds; apparently Hasek refused to play against Philly in that series. Stuff happened and then....GOALIE FIGHT!!!!!!!!
The Flyers would take the series in five games. Philly would go on to the Stanley Cup Finals that year and get humilated by the Detroit Red Wings. The extreme physicality of that series probably was a small part of them getting knocked out so soon.
Buffalo would have their revenge the year after. They would bounce the Flyers out in the first round of the playoffs in 1998. This came after a season where the Flyers played a sluggish season and couldn't quite get things right.
The Cool Off
The rivalry wasn't quite over yet. In 2000, the Flyers topped Buffalo in five games in the first round again. This included the "Phantom Goal" where LeClair scored a goal by hitting it through the net on the side, ripping a hole in the net. However, the series hadn't been as phsyical as in years past since the Sabres were trying to rely on talent. After all, they had gone to the Stanley Cup Finals the year before only to lose in typical Buffalo heartbreaking fashion on Brett Hull's Game 7 OT goal.
The following year, the Sabres got their revenge. They would beat Philly in six games, including a series clinching 8-0 victory, demolishing Roman Checmanek in net. The two teams would meet again in 2006 and 2011, with Buffalo taking the former and Philly the latter. Still, it didn't have the same intensity. And with both teams sliding backwards in the 2010s, the rivalry never picked back up. It's a shame.
But man, for a five-year period, these two teams played against each other with a fury that you normally see in teenage girls fighting over a boy. Yes, the rivalries with Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and the Rangers are longer lasting and have more staying power, but nothing was as intense as what Buffalo and Philly brought to each other in the late 90s.
Yes, the fanbase may get more fired up at yelling at the Pens, but with the players on the ice, I've never seen anything as ferocious as the animosity between these two teams. The line brawls, the dirty hits, the tight games, and the high stakes all made for great hockey...a type of hockey you'll never see again.
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