PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The longest-tenured athlete currently in Philadelphia sports has surpassed franchise icons for the third-most Flyers points of all time.
Claude Giroux scored two goals 22 seconds apart on Sunday night in the Flyers’ 4-3 shootout rally by the lowly New Jersey Devils at the Wells Fargo Center. The second goal gave him 850 points for his career, moving him past Flyers legend Brian Propp for the third all-time in team history.
The Flyers are on the verge of continuing an eight-year trend of missing the playoffs every other season — a nine-year span that includes the captaincy of Giroux. But from an individual standpoint, 33-year-old Giroux continues to put himself in excellent company among franchise greats.
“Brian Propp was a great player here,” Giroux said. “Just being able to pass him, it’s an honor, and being able to win this game, it feels even better.”
“It’s something that you don’t even realize,” goalie Brian Elliott said of Giroux’s accomplishment. “He’s a guy that he brings it every night, but you just kind of expect him to keep climbing up the ranks there, and third all-time in such a storied franchise is pretty special.”
In January, well before this season took a sudden downhill turn, Giroux also passed Bobby Clarke for most games played as a Flyers captain.
Clarke is arguably the greatest Flyer ever. The leader of the Broad Street Bullies won a couple of Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975 — the last time the franchise hoisted the trophy.
Clarke has the most points in Flyers history with 1,210. Clarke’s lineman from those excellent teams in the ’70s, Bill Barber, is second, with 883 points. If Giroux stays physically healthy with the Flyers next season, he should be able to surpass Barber.
Propp was a great scorer for the Flyers in the ’80s — teams that never won a Stanley Cup but were extremely competitive. They made two trips to the Stanley Cup Finals; the second took Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and the Edmonton Oilers to seven games.
That’s the one thing Giroux has lacked in his career: postseason success, especially during his captaincy. The Flyers have only won six playoff series during Giroux’s career and lost eight. Half of those wins came during the improbable run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to Chicago in six games. Giroux was 22 at the time and scored the overtime winner in Game 3.
Two seasons later, in a first-round series against the Penguins, Giroux had an unbelievably dominant first shift in the Game 6 clincher in South Philadelphia, bulldozing Sidney Crosby after the opening faceoff and scoring within the first minute.
After that game, then-head coach Peter Laviolette infamously referred to the Giroux as “the best player in the world” — a comment some Flyers fans may cringe over.
Prior to last season in the Toronto bubble, the Flyers had not won a playoff series since that six-game victory over Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Crosby — arguably the most disliked Philadelphia sports player — and the Penguins have won two Stanley Cups since then.
Giroux scored 10 goals in the 2010 postseason and eight in the 2012 playoffs, but he has only scored four goals since — and, only one in 16 postseason games last year. They could have used more production from Giroux.
After this season, Giroux only has one season left on his contract.
Given Alain Vigneault’s Flyers are very likely missing the postseason this year, Giroux will have no chance in 2021 to turn around his lack of playoff fortune.
“G’s a smart young man and he knows that he only has so many kicks at the can left, but I think what he’s got to do is continue to do what he’s doing now: Stay in the present, give the best of himself,” Vigneault said. “That, in my estimation, is gonna have an impact on all the players, especially the young players coming into this league.
“At some point for all of his effort, he’s gonna get rewarded. I’m confident of that.”