It was Feb. 9, 1995, when the Montreal Canadiens traded me to Philadelphia. I got a call from Flyers general manager Bobby Clarke, and he mentioned that he envisioned me playing on Eric's line. I didn't know Eric that well. I had met him briefly once. But I couldn't get to Philly fast enough to play with someone like that. Coach Terry Murray put me with Eric and Mikael; we had great chemistry right away and things just kind of took off from there.
First of all, Eric had a drive I hadn't seen before. He always wanted to get better. He always expected more out of himself and everyone else. In practice, if you failed on a scoring chance, he wouldn't be afraid to come up and say, "You've got to score that." And he was serious. I know it helped me a lot, and I think it helped our line develop a lot better and play hard. We practiced hard.
To go along with that, he had every tool. He could beat you in many ways. He skill level was off the charts, and physically he was bigger and stronger than most at 6-foot-4, 240 pounds. There were guys comparable to him, but he still did it at a higher level than everybody else.
He changed the way teams played against the Flyers. Their first thought was: "How am I going to play against Eric tonight? How am I going to stop him?" It mentally affected teams before the puck even dropped. He was their main focus. They would try to match their top checking line and top defensive pair against him. Eric had a temper because he was so competitive, so they'd try different things. It was a constant chess match to try to see if they could get Eric off his game, which ended with poor results.
That's just a tribute to how great he was. He saw everybody's best, and he still dominated. They never slowed him down. His attitude was, "Bring your best, and let me go." And he won almost every night.