Asbury
Park Press - June 4, 1997
Asbury
Park Press - June 4, 1997
e's
true grit, Rod Brind'Amour is.
Perhaps the least appreciated of the Philadelphia Flyers, he has reached within himself time and time again to provide a needed spark.
He knows no other way, Rod Brind'Amour. He plays the game as hard and as well as any player, and certainly has the scars to prove it.
A pretty face he's not, but a very good hockey player he is. He wears his heart on his sleeve, much the same as Bobby Clarke did an era ago.
Last night was yet another example of what Brind'Amour means to the Flyers, losers now of the first two games of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup final series.
Trailing 2-0 in the first period and with the series slipping away, Brind'Amour scored two power play goals in 69 seconds late in the first period in true Brind'Amour style. Nothing fancy, nothing pretty but he got the job done.
On both goals, Brind'Amour positioned himself in a typically precarious spot in front of Detroit goaltender Mike Vernon.
There, in that position, he waited to get a deflection or a rebound - as the textbook says. In this case, he used the blade of his stick to deflect two point slap shots, both by Janne Niinimaa, past Vernon, almost identically.
"Garbage goals from my part. I'm not doing anything special. It's more the other guys, getting the puck to the net ... I'm just tipping them in. Those goals are easy goals. It's the guys around you who are working hard to get those shot on goal," Brind'Amour said.
To illustrate how Brind'Amour plays this game, less than seven minutes into the second period, he took a shot from the point off his left leg. He fell to his knees, the hurt so bad in his leg. He had to use his stick as a way to get himself up, skating gingerly to the Flyers' bench, where he rolled over the boards.
Brind'Amour could hardly endure the pain, rocking back and forth on the bench directly in front of Flyers coach Terry Murray. He nearly fell to his knees the pain was so intense, each time waving off trainer John Worley.
He kept moving, back and forth, standing up, sitting down, trying to shake it off. Old-time hockey players do that. Today's players ... they're back in the trainer's room. Not Brind'Amour. Not now, not ever.
The more he moved around, the more it hurt. Again Worley tried to assist him in any way he could. Brind'Amour would have none of that. He was going to skate again, bet on it.
Not surprisingly, he was back on the ice a little over a minute or so later, skating as if nothing had happened. Typical Rod Brind'Amour true grit.
And then it happened - a chance at a Stanley Cup hat trick. He skated into the Detroit zone with Eric Lindros, who was lugging the puck to Brind'Amour's right. Lindros faked a shot, spun and backhanded a beauty of a pass to Brind'Amour.
Brind'Amour, breaking down the slot, got the shot off but couldn't connect this time, though it was a great scoring opportunity. "You've got to bury those," said Brind'Amour. "I thought I did. I put it right through his legs. It actually went off the other side of the net."