Five brawls break out in final two minutes

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- For one night, the Philadelphia Flyers turned back into the Broad Street Bullies.

Claude Lapointe and Mark Recchi scored 30 seconds apart in the first period, helping the Flyers beat the Ottawa Senators 5-3 Friday night in a game that featured five consecutive brawls in the final two minutes and set an NHL record with 419 penalty minutes.

"We're not scared of Ottawa and we're not intimidated by their talent," Flyers goaltender Robert Esche said.

Officials needed about 90 minutes after the game ended to sort the penalties. The previous record for penalty minutes was 406 by the Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins in 1981. The Flyers had 213 minutes and Ottawa had 206.

After the game, Philadelphia general manager Bob Clarke, captain of the Broad Street Bullies teams of the 1970s, went toward Ottawa's dressing room, but was stopped by Flyers officials.

"Their tough guy (Rob Ray) got beat up and then their next two lines fought guys who don't fight," Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said. "I don't care what it shows them. We played a great game."

Danny Markov, Kim Johnsson and Alexei Zhamnov also scored for Philadelphia, which snapped a five-game winless streak (0-3-2) against Ottawa. The Flyers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Senators the last two seasons, and were 3-10-3 against them since a 1-0 victory in Game 1 of the 2002 Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Philadelphia remained tied for first place in the East with Tampa Bay.

Chris Neil, Zdeno Chara and Peter Bondra scored for Ottawa, which fell four points behind the conference leaders.

"I thought we competed hard and I don't know what happened at the end," Senators coach Jacques Martin said.

Philadelphia enforcer Donald Brashear and Ray started the fighting by dropping their gloves with 1:45 left. As they skated off the ice, the rest of the players joined in, including the goalies as Ottawa's Patrick Lalime skated the length of the ice to go after Esche.

Once play resumed, all the players, except the new goalies, immediately went after each other. At the next faceoff, Philadelphia's Michal Handzus and Ottawa's Mike Fisher went at it. Another fight broke out 30 seconds later. Finally, Philadelphia's Patrick Sharp and Ottawa's Jason Spezza finished it off.

The bad blood between the teams stems from Senators forward Martin Havlat hitting Recchi in the face with his stick in a game last week. Havlat played his first game after being suspended two games by the NHL. He sat in the penalty box while the fights took place.

The Flyers had seven players remaining and Ottawa had six as the game ended.

"Why wouldn't I start it? Did you see the last game?" Brashear said. "I fought a tough guy. They went after guys who don't fight. I could've fought one of their good players and hurt them, but I didn't."

The teams meet again in Philadelphia on April 2.

"Obviously my teammates didn't forget what happened last week," Recchi said.

Lapointe tied it at 1 midway through the first period with his fourth goal. His shot from the side of the left circle near the boards went off Lalime's glove and in.

Recchi scored his 25th goal into an open net a half-minute later after Lalime failed to control rebounds on consecutive shots by John LeClair.

The Flyers took a 3-1 lead later in the period when Markov took a slap shot that Neil deflected with his glove while trying to knock it down, redirecting it past Lalime.

A power-play goal by Johnsson, his third goal in two games, made it 4-1 early in the second period.

"It wasn't a great game, but our guys stood up there," Senators defenseman Wade Redden said.

Neil gave the Senators a 1-0 lead just 4:07 in with his eighth goal. Chara one-timed a shot past Esche for his 15th goal, cutting the deficit to 4-2 in the second period.

Zhamnov made it 5-2 with his 10th goal in the third period. Zhamnov has nine points in seven games with the Flyers since he was acquired from Chicago last month to help fill the void at center created by injuries to All-Stars Jeremy Roenick and Keith Primeau.< ^Notes: Flyers D Chris Therien left the game with a left shoulder strain and didn't return. D Joni Pitkanen didn't return after he was shaken up. ... Flyers F Tony Amonte played in his 1,000th NHL game. He's the 201st NHL player to reach that total and the 12th player to do so in a Flyers uniform. ... Markov's goal was the 10,000th goal in franchise history. ... Zhamnov's goal was his 700th point in the NHL. ... The Senators have allowed 10 power-play goals in the last eight games. ... Lalime has allowed nine goals in the last two games.