Remembering Mark Recchi’s record-breaking 1992-93 season: ‘He had a hunger to score’

Brent Fedyk remembers the first time he played on a line with Mark Recchi.

It was Game 1 of the 1992-93 season and the forward had been acquired from the Detroit Red Wings just five days prior. A guy who didn’t get much of an opportunity to play an offensive game in Hockeytown, here he was playing on the Flyers’ top line with Recchi and Eric Lindros. He quickly learned things would be different in Philadelphia.

“I was kind of open in the slot. [Recchi] was very near to me, like he was maybe 15 feet away, and he passed me the puck like he was shooting it on net,” Fedyk recalled about that first game. “So when I came to the bench, I kind of went, ‘So, why so hard?’ He goes, ‘Nevermind, get used to it.’”

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Fedyk did. He put up career-highs in goals (21), assists (38), and points (59) that season. And so did Recchi. The right winger not only posted personal bests with 53 goals and 70 assists, but he eclipsed the great Bobby Clarke to set the Flyers’ single-season record with 123 points in 84 games. Clarke had notched 119 points in 1975-76 while skating in 76 games.

It didn’t hurt that the third guy on the line was Lindros who, like Recchi and Clarke, would find himself in the Hockey Hall of Fame after retirement. But no one knew what to expect entering that year.

Pelle Eklund was supposed to be the left wing but was injured at the start of the season. So you had Fedyk who was brand-spanking new; Recchi who had a Stanley Cup under his belt but was entering his first full season with the team after being acquired from Pittsburgh in 1992 for fan favorite Rick Tocchet; and a highly-touted rookie with all eyes on him in Lindros.

Plus, you had two guys playing their off-wings. Recchi liked to play the right side despite being a left-handed shot. Fedyk confessed to The Inquirer that he lied when he told coach Bill Dineen he’d played left wing before.

Despite all that, the “Crazy Eights” line — named that because all three players’ jersey numbers ended in the No. 8 — worked.

“It’s funny how you connect with certain guys ... and I wish I could have an answer, like an honest answer for you. I think I’d be throwing BS out there if I said I actually knew because you don’t. Some guys, you just to play better with and some guys you don’t quite connect,” Recchi said.

“For whatever reason [Fedyk] just jelled with Eric and I. Eric and I played very well together, very easy to read off each other, and then Feds just jumped in and he was a great skater. He was competitive, good hockey sense. So we just all kind of connected and it was super fun.”

Saturday afternoon, ahead of the Flyers’ game against the Boston Bruins, Recchi, 55, will be enshrined as the 28th member of the team’s Hall of Fame. The weekend was even initially supposed to include an alumni game reunion of Recchi, Lindros, and Fedyk before Fedyk injured his shoulder. But while the Crazy Eights reunion will have to wait, we decided to look back at Recchi’s historic 1992-93 campaign.

The trio started off the season with a bang. Fedyk and Lindros scored in the season’s first game, with Recchi getting a helper on Fedyk’s goal, the Flyers’ first of the season. It wasn’t until Game 6 that Recchi was held off the score sheet for the first time, having collected two goals and six assists across the first five games.

But maybe that one game sparked him as he officially became the “Recchin’ Ball” thanks to a 17-game tear from Oct. 18-Nov. 28 where he notched 37 points (14 goals, 23 assists). When asked about the point streak, he simply said he was “dialed in.” Nuzzled in that stretch, was a six-point night against the New York Islanders and a five-point twirl against the Ottawa Senators.

“To be honest with you, it wasn’t surprising because I’ve seen him do it in junior,” said Ken Hitchcock, who was the Flyers assistant coach that season and was Recchi’s head coach in juniors with Kamloops. “... Mark had this great ability on the ice, he had great vision and he had a great shot. He wasn’t just a passer, he wasn’t just a shooter, he had this combination that worked really, really well.”

Hitchcock had a long-standing relationship with Recchi and was his head coach with the Flyers during each guy’s second stint with the team. The bench boss looks at the player he knew as an 18-year-old kid, who would go on to rack up 577 goals, over 1,500 career points, and become one of the top forwards in the game, as someone who spent his whole career proving people wrong.

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“Even though he had great [junior] numbers, he wasn’t drafted in his draft-eligible year because they thought he was too small. They didn’t think he would last in the NHL and he did,” said Hitchcock about Recchi who was eventually drafted as a 20-year-old by the Penguins. “Nobody believed that he was a 200-foot player, but he was and he could get it done.”

Listed generously at 5-foot-10, Recchi was, per former teammate Kevin Dineen, “a fireplug” on the Crazy Eights line.

“When you look at Rex as a player, [his] physique, I don’t think you’re impressed. He’s not tall. He’s not absolutely jacked,” said Dineen, who added he didn’t have the explosiveness of someone like Pavel Bure either. “... What he really was, he was just relentless in everything he did, whether it was hounding pucks, whether it was shooting pucks, the way he shot the puck.”

“I think what I was probably impressed with more was his compete in one-on-one battles and his ability to handle the puck. What I really remember about Rex is he could get the puck at his feet, he would pull it out and protect it. He was just always moving and that just made him a really dynamic guy.”

By the time 1992-93 finished, Recchi had gotten at least a point in 68 of the Flyers’ 84 games. The winger finished with 123 points thanks to 32 multi-point games.

“He shot the puck very well and he passed the puck very well,” said Terry Carkner, who played with Recchi for a season and a half. “When you can mentally see the ice together with those two things, I think that puts you above a lot of the hockey players in the world. For his size, he was not afraid to go to the front of the net or go into the corners. He played his size or bigger, easily.”

Added Dave Brown, who played parts of four seasons with Recchi in Philadelphia: “He was extremely competitive, always wanting to score, and a high-skilled guy that came out and competed every night. And, you knew, he was going to score for you. There was no doubt. He had a hunger to score that not a lot of people could equal.”

The terms competitive and driven were echoed by his former teammates. But while several of them were quick to point out that Recchi wasn’t the best skater, they did praise his wrist shot. It was something he worked on as a kid, shooting “a million pucks a day” in between playing tennis. A righty who shot left-handed for hockey, he developed a wicked shot along with a deft backhand. It was something that left a young Sean Couturier impressed.

“I remember just his wrist shot was unbelievable,” the Flyers centerman said. “I was quite young, I don’t remember how old I was but it was one of my first NHL games in Montreal. I saw him and he took a wrist shot that was so hard. I was so impressed.”

It probably helped that part of Recchi’s career — especially that 1992-93 season — was during a time when the game was a bit more open. Despite notching 123 points, Recchi finished 10th in scoring, behind guys like Mario Lemieux (160 points), Steve Yzerman (137), and Doug Gilmour (127). And he was doing it as a 24, 25-year-old.

“My dad passed away a few years ago and I was helping clean out his house a little bit and I found some old player feedbacks that he was giving to either Russ Farwell, [Flyers GM from 1990-94], or Clarkie,” said Kevin Dineen. “There was one on Eric, there was one on Rex, and there was one on Rod Brind’Amour, and it was kind of interesting to read that and actually share that with those guys. You know, talking about that level of stubbornness with Rex and why that made him such a great player as well, right?

“He was a hard-nosed guy, he played the game the right way and he was stubborn. He wanted to be a great player and he wanted to be a great player on a great team. So when you weren’t winning every night there was always a level of frustration.”

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The Flyers missed the postseason in 1992-93 by four points. But a kid that Kevin Dineen said probably was more comfortable in cowboy boots than Gucci loafers, made it memorable. Recchi broke Clarke’s record in Game 82 with the primary assist on Greg Hawgood’s marker in a 1-0 win against the New York Rangers at the Spectrum. He didn’t realize he was closing in on the record until people started talking about it and the media focused on the run.

“I remember I almost felt bad because I had so much respect for Clarkie,” Recchi said. “I really enjoyed being around him and he was always great to me. I remember almost being like, man, he’s a legend there and won Cups. I almost felt bad really, that I went ahead of him.

“I mean, it was an awesome feeling. But at the same time, it was awesome too knowing that I beat a legend. It’s a pretty incredible feeling and you never imagine that, you never dream of that when you’re growing up. You’re just dreaming to play in the NHL.”