Jeremy Roenick’s 4-for-4, Jake Voracek’s record night among Flyers’ top 10 All-Star moments

It’s NHL All-Star weekend and before Flyers captain Claude Giroux — and Gritty (gulp) — get the weekend festivities underway in Las Vegas, we got to thinking about some of the most memorable All-Star moments from the past 55 years of Flyers hockey.

With so many legendary All-Stars to choose from over the years — Bernie Parent, Bobby Clarke, Mark Howe, John LeClair, Eric Lindros, to name a few — whittling this list down to just 10 was a difficult task. That said, here’s our top 10 and, with Giroux set to participate in the Fountain Faceoff Challenge at the Bellagio Fountains this weekend, maybe we will have a new entry for next year.

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Entering the 1981 All-Star Game in Los Angeles, the Campbell Conference had not beaten the Wales Conference in five tries since the NHL switched to an interconference format in 1975. Thanks in part to young Flyers goalie Pete Peeters, that streak would not extend to six.

After St. Louis Blues netminder Mike Liut held the Wales Conference scoreless for the first half of the game, Peeters relieved him and allowed only one goal to finish out a 4-1 victory. Peeters wasn’t the only Flyer to star that day, as Bill Barber notched a goal and an assist in the historic triumph.

Listed at 7 feet tall and obviously not a poster mascot for fitness, Gritty is not someone you’d normally associate with speed. At the 2019 All-Star Game in San Jose, Calif., he shocked us all, showing up Sharks mascot S.J. Sharkie in his own building by dusting him in a timed race around the ice. In typical Gritty fashion, he did so with the upmost class, riding a hockey stick like a broom down the home stretch.

Giroux left impressed with his orange-haired twin, saying: “I’ve seen him skate before, I’m not surprised. He’s a hard competitor who hates to lose and, as you just saw, everybody hates him.”

Eric Lindros made his All-Star debut in the 1994 game at Madison Square Garden. Among the game’s best players, and at the world’s most famous arena, the 20-year-old stood out for more than his size, scoring just minutes into the game on a breakaway against Toronto’s Felix Potvin.

The moment would prove a launching pad to stardom for the dominant Lindros, who finished the season with 97 points and the following year won the Hart Trophy as league MVP. Lindros would go on to earn six more All-Star nods (five with the Flyers) despite battling injuries that ultimately cut short his brilliant career.

To say the Flyers were well-represented at the 30th NHL All-Star Game would be an understatement. The Flyers sent seven players — Bernie Parent, Tom Bladon, Joe Watson, Jim Watson, Gary Dornhoefer, Bobby Clarke, and Rick MacLeish — as well as coach Fred Shero to Vancouver. In all, the Flyers made up 35% of the Campbell Conference’s roster, although it wasn’t enough as the Wales Conference won 4-3.

The All-Star Game returned to Philadelphia for the second time in 1992, as the Spectrum hosted the NHL’s best. Rod Brind’Amour, the coach of this year’s Metropolitan Division team in Vegas, was the Flyers’ lone All-Star, but he was far from the only star on display.

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Philadelphians got an opportunity to see some of the game’s all-time greats up close, including Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Mark Messier, Brett Hull, Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, and Patrick Roy. Also, how slick were these jerseys?

In 1993 during his first stint with the Flyers, winger Mark Recchi notched five points (1 goal, 4 assists) to lead the Wales Conference to a 16-6 All-Star Game win at the Montreal Forum. Three of Recchi’s assists were to players who had played for, or would play for, the Flyers in Rick Tocchet, Kevin Stevens and Brad Marsh. Montreal took note as they would trade for Recchi in 1995 in a deal that would net the Flyers two other All-Stars: John LeClair and Eric Desjardins.

“The Riverton Rifle” fired a goal and an assist for the Campbell Conference in a losing effort to take home All-Star MVP honors in Detroit. How impressive a feat was it? He beat out the likes of Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito, Mike Bossy, Guy Lafleur, and Marcel Dionne for the honor. It was fitting that Leach’s assist came on a goal by Flyers teammate Brian Propp.

Wayne Simmonds has had a heck of career and in 2017 he was finally rewarded with his first All-Star selection. To make things even sweeter, the game was hosted by the Los Angeles Kings, the franchise that drafted Simmonds in 2007 and with which he played his first three seasons. Simmonds made the most of his lone All-Star Game appearance, scoring three goals over two rounds of games, including the winner in the championship, to earn MVP honors — for which he was rewarded with a pickup truck.

“It’s all pretty surreal. I don’t even know if I realize what’s going on right now,” Simmonds told reporters after the game. “But it’s pretty cool, and I’m lucky I have some family members here. My fiancée is here, so I get to enjoy this moment with them. It’s been an awesome weekend for me.”

Not a bad weekend, indeed.

The 2014-15 season was a career year for Jake Voracek, who racked up 82 points and finished fifth in the league in scoring. He also had an All-Star Game to remember, scoring a hat trick and adding three assists for good measure in his return to Columbus. The Czech winger’s six points tied Lemieux’s All-Star Game record, set in 1988.

Always good for a quote, Voracek didn’t take too much stock in his performance. “I had three secondary assists, so I wouldn’t get too excited about that.”

Playing in his ninth and final All-Star Game in 2004, Jeremy Roenick arrived in St. Paul, Minn., with one thing on his mind: perfection. Having already won the accuracy shooting competition twice, JR wanted to go 4-for-4 on targets and join the exclusive club of players to have swept the board.

He did just that, picking the target in all four corners on four successive shots to become the third player, after Bourque (1992, ‘93), and Messier (1996), to go a perfect 4-for-4.