Flyers Ice Penguins In OT
Jean-Sebastien Aubin was angry.
Luke Richardson had just beaten the Aubin with 8.8 seconds left in overtime, giving Philadelphia a 4-3 victory, and the Penguins' goaltender had no chance to even try to stop the puck. That's because Flyers defenseman Eric Desjardins was draped over him.
"I couldn't hear or see anything," Aubin said. "I can't see why they called that a goal."
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"I just looked up and the puck was there," said Richardson, whose only other goal was Nov. 28 at Ottawa. "I don't know if Desjardins distracted him, but it gave me more room to shoot."
Recchi, who set up Richardson's goal with his team-leading 47th assist, offered a different view.
"Luke made a great shot," Recchi said. "He was coming up the side really fast, and their goalie didn't seem to respond quick enough."
Pittsburgh's Matthew Barnaby had tied it at 3 with 6:18 left in the third period.
He tipped in a pass from Darius Kasparaitis just 31 seconds after Philadelphia's Todd White scored his first NHL goal to give the Flyers a 3-2 lead. White deflected a shot by John LeClair from inside the right circle. LeClair had three assists.
"It's very disappointing because we played a great game," said Audin, the NHL's player of the week last week.
Jan Hrdina and Alexei Kovalev also scored for Pittsburgh. Kovalev's unassisted short-handed goal tied it at 2 with 9:58 left in the third.
"It was a chess match for the first two periods," Pittsburgh coach Herb Brooks said. "Then we got soft in the third period and in overtime."
Recchi and Andy Delmore also scored for the Flyers, who are 4-0-1 in their last five games and have beaten Pittsburgh 12 straight times at home during the past six seasons.
Pittsburgh is 2-13-0 in its last 15 road games.
Both teams played without their top stars for the second straight game. Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr, the NHL's leading scorer with 85 points, is out indefinitely with a hamstring injury, while Philadelphia captain Eric Lindros is day-to-day with a sore back.
Delmore, who has been recalled from the AHL Philadelphia Phantoms six times since Oct. 29, scored his first NHL goal to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 12:08 of the second period. He connected on a wrist shot from the slot off a pass from LeClair.
Hrdina got Pittsburgh even with 1:52 left in the period, slapping in a rebound of a shot by Jiri Slegr.
Recchi made it 2-1 only 43 seconds later, wrestling the puck free along the boards and scoring on a wraparound shot that bounced off the thigh of Penguins goalie Aubin.
Roger Neilson attended his first game since relinquishing Philadelphia's coaching chores for the rest of the regular season to Craig Ramsey after the Flyers' victory over Washington on Saturday. Neilson, who is battling cancer, underwent chemotherapy Monday and is scheduled for a stem-cell transplant next month.
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