It was a foregone conclusion that Ian Laperriere would announce his retirement after the 2011-12 season, but there is still a little bit of sadness that his career had to end with two seasons on injured reserve as a result of post-concussion issues that prevented him from returning to the ice for the Flyers.
The retirement paperwork will be filed as soon as the off-season officially begins. He would have retired sooner but, because he signed an over-35 contract with the Flyers, could not do so without the team being forced to carry his salary against the cap the last two years.
A player who would pay any price to win, Laperriere suffered a severe concussion and grotesque facial injury as a result of blocking a shot with his face in the final game of the Flyers' 2010 playoff series with the New Jersey Devils.
Laperriere only spent one season as an active player for the Flyers but he made quite an impression for his heart, toughness and devotion to the team. He may not have been in uniform the last two seasons but he was still part of the club, working with young players and giving input on player development.
Last season, despite not suiting up in a single game, Laperriere won the NHL's Masterton Trophy. I can think of no person who better exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey than the veteran of 1,083 regular season games and 67 playoff games. He is universally respected around the hockey world for his work ethic, fierce competitiveness on the ice and for being one of the sport's true good guys off the ice.
Laperriere was the type of player who would play through immense pain and exemplified legitimate toughness. He wasn't big or especially fast. He most certainly wasn't much of a goal scorer at the NHL level. But he was a winner through and through.
Players who perform his fourth-line role on the ice rarely get much recognition or glory, but Lappy was just about the prototype role player who could provide a spark of energy for his team in numerous different ways: a timely fight, a strong forechecking shift, forcing an opposing player into a turnover or goading him into a penalty. It was almost impossible to outwork him, either at practice or on game nights.
His hockey assessments are spot-on and delivered with the same sort of straightforward honesty that he brought to his own game on the ice. Off the ice, one would be hard pressed to find a more delightful human being than Laperriere. He's kind, compassionate, funny, family-oriented and eminently approachable for young hockey players, fans and media members alike.
Whatever he chooses to do, Laperriere will be a success. Personally, I hope he stays around Philadelphia for many years to come.
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Thirty years ago today, the Flyers made a controversial trade that would ultimately prove to be one of their best of the 1980s. On this day, the Flyers traded starting goaltender
Pete Peeters to the Boston Bruins in exchange for young defenseman Brad McCrimmon.
The Peeters-for-McCrimmon trade is a classic example of why the wisdom of such trades needs to be judged over multiple years and not after just one season.
The reason the deal was made: the Flyers needed help on the blueline, and McCrimmon was a promising young defender who had been a first-round pick for Boston (15th overall) in the legendary 1979 NHL Draft. The Flyers also had Pelle Lindbergh waiting in the wings to replace Peeters. The irascible Peeters feuded with members of the local media but was still popular among many fans for his tremendous rookie year and two NHL All-Star Game selections.
The trade was widely criticized locally when it was first made and did not work out well right off the bat. Peeters won the Vezina Trophy in his first year in Boston while it took McCrimmon a couple more years to fully blossom into one of the NHL's best shutdown defensemen. Lindbergh earned an NHL All-Rookie team selection and All-Star Game spot in 1982-83 but struggled in the second half of the season after suffering a broken wrist.
Two seasons later, Lindbergh won the Vezina and led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup Finals. McCrimmon, of course, was integral to the success of the deal, form a deadly blueline duo with Mark Howe.
After his Vezina-winning campaign in his first year in Boston, Peeters' struggled over the next two-plus seasons and was eventually traded to the Washington Capitals. A split-time starter in DC, he eventually came back to Philadelphia as a backup goalie.
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