Two really tight games with Philadelphia

[The Deer]

This pair of games was interesting because of the Eric Lindros factor, it was his first games against Quebec since snubbing them at the 1991 draft. The second game of the home-and-home was at the Colisee de Quebec and it was a ROUGH ride for big #88, as fans dressed in diapers and taunted him with pacifiers. The heckling set new unofficial NHL standards, and by late first period, the 20-year-old Lindros could take no more. He burst into tears and left the ice, forcing coach McMarkis to replace him with long-time Flyer Pelle Eklund, who had scored a key powerplay goal in the previous game in Philadelphia.

First game at the Spectrum was the tightest game Quebec has played all year. Philly's defence was just awesome, so so hard to get anything going, and two of Quebec's goals were lucky breaks more than anything, it was way too hard to get any goals based on sustained pressure. One of them was scored by Owen Nolan on a lucky penalty shot, and the other one was while killing a penalty, Quebec totally lucked out as the computer-controlled Nolan somehow picked off a D-to-D pass and went in and scored on a shorthanded breakaway. Super tight game that saw Philly tie things up twice in the third, only for Curtis Lescychyn (will never get that spelling right) to score a gusty/kind of ugly goal to put things away for good, 4-3 final Nordiques, once again tightest game so far this year.

Second game in Quebec was tied 2-2 about midway through but the whole "baby Lindros" saga seemed to cause the Flyers to collapse, and Quebec cruised the rest of the way to a 7-3 victory. It felt more like a 5-3 game or so though, Les Nordiques got a couple of lucky bounces. One of which was really lucky, seeing the Flyers set up a beauty one-timer and beating Quebec's Ron Hextall, only to see the puck sail way over the net and ring perfectly back off the glass right back to Joe Sakic, giving him a breakaway which he scored on.

I'd also like to point out that I was a huge fan of seeing former Cape Breton Oiler Greg Hawgood play some serious minutes on the blueline for Philadelphia, and score a great one-timer goal in the second game. Love to see any former CB Oiler appear in this game!

Anyhow, it was so tight that it probably should have been a split, so Quebec feels lucky to have taken both. What's even sweeter however, is to see the headlines in the newspaper the next day: "Lindros- Le Gros Bebe!!!" Word has it that Eric doesn't even want to show his face at the Colisee when the Flyers return in the second half.