Philadelphia Flyers 2, New York Rangers 1 FINAL

NEW YORK (AP) _ On the night Sean Burke came back to the Flyers and won, Philadelphia lost star center Jeremy Roenick with a broken jaw.

The Flyers beat the New York Rangers 2-1 on Thursday night in what became a costly victory. They lost Roenick in the third period and, moments later, saw another center, Keith Primeau, shaken up in a collision with the Rangers' Bobby Holik.

``To absorb that and still compete, our team earned it today,'' Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock said. ``The players deserve a lot of credit for the way they sucked it up there and played it out.''

Burke won his first game since being reacquired to tend goal for Philadelphia, making 26 saves. Sami Kapanen scored the go-ahead goal midway through the third period.

But the focus afterward was on Roenick. He was hit flush on the face by Rangers defenseman Boris Mironov's shot and immediately went down.

``Jeremy got hit point blank with a puck on the left jaw, sustained a very bad fracture of the left jaw ... he was out pretty much for three or four minutes,'' said Dr. Andrew Feldman, the Rangers' physician. ``The jaw is a problem and I'm sure he's going to need surgery on that.''

Roenick was motionless for several minutes before getting up and slowly leaving the ice while clutching a towel to his face. He waved to the fans, who gave him an ovation as he left.

``It's not often you get cheered at Madison Square Garden,'' Roenick said through a team spokesman. ``They showed a lot of class and I wanted to respond.''

Rangers general manager-coach Glen Sather felt the injuries could have inspired the Flyers.

``I think teams, historically, when they lose players like that rally around it during the game,'' Sather said. ``I don't want to see anybody get hurt in a hockey game.''

But one of his players did, too. Jaromir Jagr hurt his groin area late in the game.

``There's so much pain now,'' Jagr said. ``It's not exactly my groin, but it hurts when I push.''

Desperate for goaltending help with Jeff Hackett forced to retire because of vertigo and Robert Esche sidelined by a knee injury, the Flyers acquired Burke from Phoenix on Monday. Burke also had a short stint with the Flyers late in the 1997-98 season.

``I was little bit nervous at the start because I had a couple of days to think about it,'' Burke said. ``I made a couple of saves in the first period, but I left a couple of rebounds out there.''

One of them led to the first goal, by Brian Leetch with two minutes to go in the first period. That was the only puck the Rangers put past Burke.

Simon Gagne pulled the Flyers even with a power-play goal in the second period to set the stage for Kapanen in the third.

Kapanen drilled a shot from between the circles past Jussi Markkanen to give the Flyers their fourth straight victory and their eighth in the last 10 games (8-1-1). It was a demanding effort, given the injury toll.