| November 16, 2002 |
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| RALEIGH - The veteran wasn't able to help light the lamp in his milestone NHL game.
So the kid made up for it. |
| The Carolina Hurricanes' alternate captain, Rod Brind'Amour, played his 1,000th game in the league Friday night at the RBC Center against his former team - the Philadelphia Flyers - and didn't improve on his career stats. |
| But the other former Flyer on the Hurricanes' roster did. |
| Rookie enforcer forward Jesse Boulerice scored his first NHL goal in the first period, with help from his fellow fourth-liners who were also getting some season "firsts," to give defending Eastern Conference champion Carolina a 1-1 tie with the Atlantic Division-leading Flyers. |
| It was Philadelphia's final visit of the regular season to the RBC Center, just 10 days after the Flyers' 2-1 overtime victory here to begin the season series. |
| "That was sweet," Boulerice said of the fact his goal came against the team that traded him to the Hurricanes last spring. "I thought about it the last game [against Philadelphia], but I didn't really get into the game much. I just got lucky and got the stick on it. ... I don't have any hard feelings about the Flyers. They treated me well when I was there." |
| Defenseman Aaron Ward got the game's first star for Carolina, while Boulerice took the second and forward Erik Cole the third. |
| Brind'Amour, who began his NHL career with the St. Louis Blues, played 633 career games with Philadelphia before coming to Carolina in a Jan. 20, 2000, trade for current Flyers captain Keith Primeau. Primeau remained a target of off-color chants from the crowd, both at every obvious opportunity and at seemingly random times throughout the game. |
| Brind'Amour was not made available to the media after the game. |
| "Roddy got a little bruise there early on, and I don't think he was feeling 100 percent," Carolina coach Paul Maurice said, then quipping of the oft-bruised Brind'Amour, "But the X-rays were negative." |
| Carolina is 4-0-2-1 on its current extended homestand, and is 7-1-3-1 over its last 12 games. |
| Carolina goalie Kevin Weekes (8-3-3) stopped 27 shots to 23 for Philadelphia's Roman Cechmanek (6-3-3). |
| "I felt fine again, but this is not an individual thing," Weekes said. "That the fourth line scored the goal was reflective of the way we played very well as a team." |
| The Flyers got on the board first just 2:18 into the game, when Jeremy Roenick took a centering pass from Mark Recchi on a 3-on-2 rush and scooped the puck past Weekes glove side. Kim Johnsson had the secondary assist on Roenick's 435th career goal and 1,027th point. |
| But the Hurricanes retaliated soon after with the very popular fourth-line goal at the 5:25 mark. Boulerice followed a Jeff Daniels shot by poking the puck between Cechmanek's pads for the equalizer. It was Daniels' first point of the season while Harold Druken, obtained two weeks ago in a 2-for-2 trade with the Vancouver Canucks, had the secondary assist for his first point as a Hurricane. |
| Boulerice's was only the fifth first-period goal scored against the Flyers this season. |
| The fans got excited for nothing in the final minute of the first when Bret Hedican let fly from the left point and hit the crossbar, as the horn went off but the "goal" was immediately waved off. |
| Philadelphia got off eight shots to the Hurricanes' six in the second period. The highlight of the period for Carolina was the killing of a double-minor to David Tanabe, who was boxed for four minutes for an inadvertent high stick that caught Primeau at the left eye. |
| The Flyers out-shot the Hurricanes 9-7 in the third period, in which one two-minute penalty against Philadelphia was called. |
| Weekes was brilliant in overtime, stopping five shots to three for Cechmanek. |
| "We played a great game," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said. "In the second, third period and the overtime; I'm not sure Carolina had a scoring chance in the third period or overtime [and] they're a great hockey team." |
| NOTES - Carolina's next game is here on Sunday at 1:30 against Tampa Bay. * Hurricanes forward Sami Kapanen missed Friday's game with a pulled groin, while center Josef Vasicek remained on the scratch list with back spasms. * Friday's attendance was announced at 17,480, giving the Hurricanes 176,278 through 12 home dates. * Carolina visits the Flyers at the First Union Center on Feb. 15 and March 13. * Philadelphia hosts the Boston Bruins tonight. |
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| Source: HeraldSun.Com, Mike Potter |
