The natural tendency when discussing the current NHL-NHLPA situation is to compare the impending lockout to the one that ultimately caused the cancellation of the 2004-05 season. However, while the specific issues today are an outgrowth of 2004-05, I get the sense that the season-scheduling outcome is likely to be closer to the situation in 1994-95, when the season was shortened to 48 games.
Back in 1994, Gary Bettman was determined to give the NHL owners the salary cap they so strongly desired. However, after three months of lost games, several bigger market teams -- including Philadelphia, which was not yet owned by Comcast -- dropped support for a continued lockout on the basis that the benefits of a salary cap were outweighed by the negative impact of ongoing lost revenue. The two sides eventually compromised on a rookie salary maximum and the requirement that all entry-level contracts be two-way deals.
Part of the reason why the NHL immediately rejected the NHLPA's early proposal to play the 2012-13 season under the expired CBA while negotiating a new one stems from Bettman (who was in his first year as commissioner) agreeing to play the 1993-94 season under the same circumstances.
The NHL did not get its desired outcome from the lockout that followed the next season, because the NHLPA suspected -- correctly, as it turned out -- that the owners were not really a united front. In 2004-05, the tables turned. Bettman kept the team owners unified, while the union was ultimately shattered to pieces.
In 2012, the NHLPA appears to be stronger and better led than it was the last time around. Thus far, Bettman has the support of all the key owners in the league. That's why there WILL be another lockout. Hopefully it doesn't stretch as long as the one in 1994-95.
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The lockout-shortened 1994-95 season ended up being a key turnaround season in the Flyers' on-ice fortunes. That was the year where Philly, after five years of missing the playoffs, re-emerged as a Stanley Cup contender.
Training camp started as scheduled that year prior to the lockout. It is easy nowadays to forget that the team in Sept. 1994 was still considered too suspect on defense and in goal to be a playoff caliber club. New coach Terry Murray and newly rehired GM Bob Clarke had their work cut out for them.
Anyone who complains about the current projected starting defense for the 2012-13 Flyers either wasn't following the team -- or has simply forgotten -- what the team had going into that 1994-95 season.
The previous season, the starting defense primarily consisted of Garry Galley, Dmitri Yushkevich, Jeff Finley, rookies Jason Bowen and Stewart Malgunas, tough guy Ryan McGill and various in-season acquisitions such as Rob Zettler and Rob Ramage (a former four-time NHL All-Star and two-time Cup winner who, at age 35 was at the end of the line in his NHL career).
In goal, the Flyers had the duo of Tommy Söderström and Dominic Roussel. Both had been touted for a time as the potential long-term "goalie of the future" -- Söderström had particularly impressed as a rookie in 1992-93 with 5 shutouts in 44 games -- but their ongoing inconsistency was a major concern.
Against that backdrop, Clarke set out to remake the team defensively, while the defensive-minded Murray preached discipline and defensive responsibility:
* On June 29, Clarke traded the offensively talented (9 goals, 52 points in just 67 games in 1993-94) but defensively suspect Racine to Montreal for Kevin Haller; a chippy, defensively reliable puck-mover with good mobility.
* On July 6, Clarke signed veteran checking center Craig MacTavish to a two-year, $1.6 million contract. MacTavish, who had been a key faceoff presence and penalty killer for the Stanely Cup winning Rangers, also owned three Cup rings from his days as a checking forward on the Edmonton Oilers.
* On July 27, Clarke signed free agent left winger Shjon Podein. An offensive star at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and a 30-goal scorer at the AHL level, the Flyers pegged the now-former Edmonton Oilers forward as a role-playing, two-way winger at the NHL level. He quickly blossomed into one of the NHL's best defensive wingers.
* On Aug. 16, the Flyers signed Shawn Anderson as a free agent. A faded former high-end draft pick (selected fifth overall by Buffalo in the 1986 Draft), Anderson had played under Murray in Washington, and the hope was that he could compete for a third-pairing job with the Flyers. That didn't work out very well. He ended up getting banished to the AHL and eventually released.
* After three years of collegiate hockey at Providence and a year mostly spent with the Canadian national team, the club hoped that rookie defenseman Chris Therien could immediately compete for a spot with the big club. He played impressively at camp, but when the lockout was about to hit, got sent down to Hershey. Bundy returned to the big club after the lockout ended and went on to earn NHL All-Rookie team honors.
* On Sept. 22, Clarke traded Söderström to the Islanders and re-acquired Ron Hextall. Hexy was immediately installed as the starting goalie, ahead of Roussel. The Flyers also received a 1995 6th-round draft pick in the trade, using it the next summer to select Russian defenseman Dmitri Tertyshny.
When the season finally got started, the Flyers dropped five of their first eight games, with one tie. It was clear that more changes were necessary. On Feb. 9, 1995, Clarke made what turned out to be one of the most important trades in franchise history. In a blockbuster deal with Montreal, the Flyers sent top-line right wing Mark Recchi to the Habs in exchange for top-pairing defenseman Eric Desjardins, third-line center/winger John LeClair and fallen second-line winger Gilbert Dionne.
As it soon turned out, of course, Murray's decision to make LeClair a full-time winger and play him with Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg ended up looking like sheer brilliance. With the birth of the Legion of Doom line, the Flyers never missed Recchi's production (despite his back-to-back 100-plus point seasons prior to the trade).
Just as important, the acquisition of Desjardins helped stabilize the blueline. He would immediately become the Flyers' best defenseman for most of the next decade; a seven-time winner of the Barry Ashbee Trophy (including in 1994-95). Despite its lack of physicality, his pairing with Haller was highly effective in both 1995 and the 1995-96 campaign because they were two of the most mobile defensemen in the NHL.
Clarke still wasn't done remaking the blueline.
On Feb. 16, the Flyers and Blackhawks swapped struggling young defensemen, with Karl Dykhuis (a 1990 first-round pick who had been highly touted entering the pros) coming to Philadelphia and Bob Wilkie going to Chicago. Dykhuis immediately stepped into the NHL lineup. While he was inconsistent and sometimes prone to major gaffes, Dykhuis was also capable at times of elevating his game to a high level, especially in his first couple playoff runs.
Just before the trade deadline, Clarke sent a disgruntled Galley to Buffalo in exchange for the mobile and defensively steady (but injury prone) Petr Svoboda. Svoboda helped smooth some of young partner Dykhuis' rough edges.
Thus, by the start of the 1995 playoffs, the Flyers had changed over their starting goaltending and five of their six starting defense slots -- Zettler remained on as the seventh defenseman -- from the end of the previous season. But it wasn't just change for change's sake. Virtually every move ended up being an upgrade.
I know that Clarke has his critics for his work as GM, but his work from the summer of 1994 to the end of the 1995 season was one of the best years I have ever seen from an NHL general manager. Keith "the Thief" Allen couldn't have done it any better that year. Clarke also did it without spending a ton of extra money on salaries that season.
Meanwhile, Murray made the Flyers much more accountable defensively as a team. Some of the forwards may not have always liked it, but they saw the results in the standings and with two trips to the Eastern Conference Final (one of which extended to the Stanley Cup Final) in three seasons.
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Seventeen years ago today, on Sept. 11, 1995, the Flyers signed restricted free agent left winger John LeClair to a contract extension. People recall that LeClair ended up holding out during training camp two years later while the contract was still in force, but many forget the circumstances that led up to it:
* LeClair reported for the Flyers' 1995 training camp without a contract. The restricted free agent, coming off his breakout year after his early-season acquisition from Montreal, had made clear that he only wanted to be a Flyer. He did not want the still-unresolved contract to get in the way of his preparations for next season.
* LeClair's agent Lewis Gross agreed to what even then was a well-below market value contract for the player, because LeClair was so anxious to get it resolved.
* LeClair went out and scored 50-plus goals in both 1995-96 and 1996-97. Clarke had promised a renegotiation (it was still allowed at the time to rip up an existing contract by mutual agreement and replace it with a higher-paying one). But progress was slow.
* In the summer of 1997, the Flyers had signed (and then made a de facto trade with Tampa Bay for) restricted free agent Chris Gratton, paying Gratton $9 million in the first year of the deal, including signing bonus. LeClair was making about $1.5 million under the terms of the contract he'd signed two Septembers earlier.
* The Flyers refused to negotiate with LeClair during his holdout. However, Ed Snider and Clarke both pledged to get a deal done if LeClair ended the holdout. He did, and a new contract was signed. LeClair had his third straight 50-goal season in 1997-98.
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The other day, while staying at my sister's new house in Bucks County, I took a trip over to visit the Garden of Reflection -- a serene and sadly beautiful memorial to the victims of 9-11. I made sure to look for the name of former NHL player and LA Kings scout Garnet "Ace" Bailey, who was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 when terrorists hijacked the plane and forced it crash into the World Trade Center.
On this day of remembrance, I thought it appropriate to post the link to the
Ace Bailey Children's Foundation, which was set up in his memory to support the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
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