Quick Hits: Feb. 4, 2022
1) The NHL's 2022 All-Star Weekend Skills Competition will be held tonight in Las Vegas. The events will be broadcast live on ESPN, starting at 7:30 p.m. ET. Flyers captain Claude Giroux, who will also captain the Metro Division All-Stars in Saturday's game, will take part in the "Fountain Faceoff" event on Friday. The event is a twist on the traditional accuracy shooting event in which participants attempt to break designated targets in the fewest shot attempts.
The twist this year is that the event will take place within the famous fountains outside the Bellagio Hotel and Casino on the Vegas strip. Participants will travel by boat to the “rink” and are required to successfully shoot pucks into five targets in the least amount of time.
2) On PhiladelphiaFlyers.com, we have two All-Star Game features with NHL All-Star Game themes. One article looks at
Giroux's legacy of seven All-Star Game selections; only Bobby Clarke (10) had more than the seven in which Giroux and Bill Barber participated. The second article is a Top 12 retrospective on memorable Flyers-related All-Star moments and accomplishments, ranging from 1968 to 2017.
3) Phantoms Update: The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (14-15-8) will look to climb back to hockey .500 on the season as they host the Providence Bruins (17-11-6) at the PPL Center in Allentown on Friday evening. Game time is 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will be streamed live on AHLTV (subscription required).
The Phantoms expect to have Morgan Frost, Cam York, Isaac Ratcliffe and Jackson Cates in the lineup both for this game and for Saturday's road game against the Atlantic Division leading Hartford Wolf Pack (21-12-5). The Flyers sent the four young players to the Phantoms in order to get game action over the course of the NHL parent team's schedule break before returning next week.
When the Flyers and Bruins met previously this season, Zach Senyshyn torched Lehigh Vallley for a hat trick and an assist in a 5-3 victory for Providence. Garrett Wilson, Gerry Mayhew and Brennan Saulnier tallied in a losing cause for Lehigh Valley.
On special teams, Providence ranks 14th on the power play (19.7 percent success rate) and third on the penalty kill (85.6 percent). The Phantoms ranked at the bottom on the AHL on the power play for the first two months of the season and still rank 29th at 13.8 percent (the team was under 10 percent through the first 19 games). The Lehigh Valley PK ranks sixth, however, at 84.0 percent. The Phantoms have also scored seven shorthanded goals to date this season.
4) Feb. 4 Flyers Alumni birthdays: Joe Sacco (1969).
5) Today in Flyers History: Feb. 4, 1999
When the Philadelphia Flyers acquired defenseman Dan McGillis from the Edmonton Oilers at the 1998 trade deadline in exchange for young offensive-minded defenseman Janne Niinimaa, the deal was widely panned. However, McGillis ended up holding his end of the bargain in an underrated Flyers career that spanned four full and two partial seasons.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound McGillis brought a physical but usually clean style of play and boasted a very heavy shot that enabled him to score 14 goals one season (2000-01) as well as unheralded first-pass ability. Twice as a Flyer, McGillis attained 45 points or more while playing generally solid defense. The only thing he lacked was speed.
McGillis was well-established in the Flyers' blueline top four by the time he set his single-game point high with three points (zero goals, three assists) in a 5-2 win at the First Union Center over the Montreal Canadiens. On that night, team captain Eric Lindros (one goal, two assists) and Legion of Doom linemate John LeClair (two goals, one assist) got most of the attention, however.
The Flyers pulled away in the third period, as goals by former Legion of Doom right wing Mikael Renberg (now in his second Flyers stint and playing on Rod Brind'Amour's line), linemate Valeri Zelepukin and LeClair turned a narrow lead into a comfortable one.
In an era in which ties were still part of the regular season in the NHL, the Flyers' win over the Habs was part of an eventual eight-game undefeated streak (6-0-2) and part of a stretch which saw Philadelphia lose only once in 24 games (16-1-7).
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