1994 EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS, GAME 6: NEW YORK RANGERS AT NEW JERSEY DEVILS
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BACKSTORY
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1940.
That was the last time the New York Rangers had won the Stanley Cup. They played in the largest market in the NHL, and in the media capital of the world. They had one of the largest payrolls–often THE largest payroll–in the league. Over the years, despite many periods of futility–particularly the mid- to late 1940s and most of the ’50s and ’60s–they iced some fairly talented squads. They surprisingly fought their way to the Finals in 1950, taking the powerful Detroit Red Wings of Gordie Howe and the Production Line to a seventh game before bowing out. In 1972, they upset the defending champion Montreal Canadiens, then did the same to the previous campaign’s runner-up–the Chicago Black Hawks–before yielding to the Big Bad Bruins in the championship round. Seven years after that, under former Flyers coach Fred Shero and captained by Phil Esposito, they made another commendable run for Lord Stanley. After chasing Ken Dryden in Game 1, the Broadway Blueshirts fell to the Bleu, Blanc, et Rouge in the Cup Finals.
During the 1980s, the Rangers remained competitive, but were simply outmatched by the truly elite franchises of the day. The highlight of the decade was a surprise run to the conference finals in 1986, during which the Blueshirts knocked off the first-place Flyers in the first round, then the second-place Washington Capitals in the division final before losing, once again, to Les Habitants–who, once again, would hoist the Cup. That conference final series pitted two of the league’s best young netminders against each other: The Habs’ rookie Patrick Roy, and for the Rangers, that season’s Vezina winner, John Vanbiesbrouck.
The end of that decade saw the team from the Big Apple bottom out, due in no small part to the wild wheeling and dealing of none other than Phil Esposito, who was now the team’s general manager. Espo completed so many player transactions during his tenure–it has been noted that he made more trades in his three years as GM than one other NHL team did during the entire 1980s–that he was dubbed, “Trader Phil.” Numerous young prospects were sent packing in exchange for older veterans–does THAT sound familiar? Aging superstar Marcel Dionne was one example. Most of these veteran players were in decline and did nothing to turn the Rangers into a true Cup contender. Dionne himself was finished within two years of his arrival.
However, some young phenoms remained in the Rangers’ system. Stud blueliner Brian Leetch joined the team shortly after playing for Team USA in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. One year later, during the postseason, he was joined by the goaltender from that squad, Flourtown native and Germantown Academy alum Mike Richter. (NOTE: Richter didn’t actually graduate from GA, instead completing his scholastic career at Northwood School in Lake Placid, New York, in 1985.) Over the next four seasons, Richter would battle Vanbiesbrouck for the starting goaltender job on Broadway.
Then, already tired of Esposito’s itchy trigger finger, the team gave their former captain his walking papers. His replacement: Neil Smith, the GM for the Red Wings’ AHL affiliate in Adirondack, who won two Calder Cups under his watch.
Smith, at least initially, took a more patient approach to the job than did his predecessor. The team drafted and developed several noteworthy players over the next few seasons, such as Tony Amonte, Doug Weight, Sergei Zubov, Sergei Nemchinov, and Alexei Kovalev. Of equal importance to the Rangers’ ascension was Smith’s ability to take advantage of the plight of the Edmonton Oilers, who, due to the precarious financial situation of their owner, Peter Pocklington, had already lost the services of The Great One. They continued to move, or refuse to retain, key players from their Stanley Cup dynasty in an effort to remain economically sound. On two dates, just over one month apart–September 3 and October 4, 1991–the Rangers would prove to be the big winners of the Edmonton fire sale. On September 3, they signed young sniper Adam Graves away from the Oil as a free agent.
But on the latter date, they packaged Bernie Nicholls and prospects Steven Rice and Louie Debrusk, sending them to the Oilers for future considerations, which took the form of a separate transaction, completed little over a month later. In that deal, the two teams swapped blueliners, with David Shaw going to Edmonton, and hard-hitting Jeff Beukeboom coming to New York.
Oh, the original deal netted the Rangers one other player: Superstar center Mark Messier.
It remains the most important trade in franchise history. The Rangers were catapulted into the elite ranks of NHL squads. They went on to win the Presidents’ Trophy that year as the league’s best regular season team. That momentum continued into the playoffs, as the team advanced to the Patrick Division Final against the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, taking a 2-1 series lead after the first three games. Alas, the Blueshirts lost the next three in a row, and Pittsburgh went on to win their second straight title.
Things took an unexpected turn for the worse the next campaign, as the Rangers slumped late in the season to finish last in the Patrick Division. At the trade deadline that year, Smith acquired another key component of the Oiler dynasty, Esa Tikkanen. The price was young star center Doug Weight. Prior to the trade, Smith fired coach Roger Neilson, replacing him first with interim coach Ron Smith. Over the summer, Neil Smith found a more permanent replacement: “Iron” Mike Keenan, who had coached Messier and Team Canada to victory in the 1987 Canada Cup, and who came heartbreakingly close to defeating Messier’s Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals earlier that year as coach of the Flyers. Keenan was one year removed from yet another runner-up finish in the Cup Finals, this time in Chicago as head coach and GM. After losing a power struggle with Blackhawks’ executive Bob Pulford, Keenan resigned in 1993, and the Rangers’ front office wasted no time in luring him to Manhattan.
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On the other side of the Hudson River, the New Jersey Devils seemed to define the term “futility” for most of their history. Beginning life as the Kansas City Scouts in 1974, they spent two disastrous seasons in K.C. before relocating to Denver for the 1976-77 campaign. Now branded as the Colorado Rockies, the franchise remained dormant, earning a postseason berth in 1978 due only to the odd circumstance of playing in a division where three of the other four teams were even worse than they were. In their combined eight seasons as the Scouts and Rockies, the team reached the 20-win plateau just twice, and never finished with even 60 points in a regular season.
That trend would continue the first few seasons in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the franchise, now the Devils, relocated in 1982. It was not until the 1987-88 campaign, under fiery coach Jim Schoenfeld, that Brendan Byrne Arena–the Devils’ home rink–would host a playoff game. Riding the wave of hot rookie goaltender Sean Burke, and led by young forwards Kirk Muller, John MacLean, Pat Verbeek, and Patrik Sundstrom, the Devils made a surprise run to the conference finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in a dramatic seven-game series. The team, now also featuring a young Brendan Shanahan, briefly returned to its losing ways for one season before beginning the ’90s as a perennial playoff squad.
Over the next two years, the Devils would acquire four players that, combined, would take them to the next level. With the 20th pick in the legendary 1990 NHL Entry Draft, they selected goaltender Martin Brodeur, who, within three and a half years, would supplant Chris Terreri as the team’s starter. (Sean Burke was traded to Hartford during the ’92 off-season, packaged with young defenseman Eric Weinrich in the deal that landed the Devils Bobby Holik and a second round pick that turned into longtime defensive specialist Jay Pandolfo.) Just before the following training camp, the team shipped scoring winger Sylvain Turgeon to Montreal for superpest Claude Lemieux. (Lemieux would score 30 goals that season, then a career high 41 in the next.) In the 1991 draft–the Lindros draft–the Devils used the third overall pick to select two-way defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who would become one of their blueline anchors for more than a decade.
But it was in the fall of that year that the team made arguably their most important acquisition. After letting Shanahan sign with St. Louis as a restricted free agent, the Blues, in turn, were required to compensate the Devils with five first-round draft picks. The problem was, the Blues didn’t have any, as they still owed two to Washington for a separate transaction. Thus, other compensation needed to be negotiated. The Devils reportedly turned down an offer of Curtis Joseph, Rod Brind’Amour, and two other draft picks. An arbitrator finally awarded the Devils rugged, hard-hitting, All-Star defenseman Scott Stevens. Like Niedermayer, he would serve as an anchor on the New Jersey defense for more than a decade.
After going through various coaches since Schoenfeld’s dismissal in 1989, the Devils found the man who would ultimately lead them to the top of the NHL heap: ex-Canadiens player and head coach Jacques Lemaire, who knew more than a thing or two about winning Stanley Cups, having been a crucial part of the Habs’ 1970s dynasty. Lemaire would implement a defensive team system that would not only make the Devils likely the stingiest team in the history of the league, but in retrospect, served as perhaps the primary factor in transitioning the NHL from the “firewagon” offensive era of the 1980s and early ’90s to the “Dead Puck Era” that began later in the decade: The dreaded neutral-zone trap, where all five of the team’s skaters occupied the area between the two blue lines, cutting off all conceivable passing lanes, and essentially giving the opposing team no choice but to simply dump the puck in the offensive zone, where it would likely be played by the Devils’ goaltender or a retreating defenseman. This system was responsible for stymieing offense league-wide, and was later adopted by almost every expansion team of that decade and of the early 2000s to help their clubs compete with the more talented offensive teams in the league. In the mid-90s, however, it was fairly new, and gave the Devils a distinct competitive advantage.
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Speaking of expansion, 1993-94 was the third consecutive season in which it took place, with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Florida Panthers joining the NHL. Permitted to protect only one goalie in the Expansion Draft that year, the Rangers opted to anoint the younger Mike Richter their long-term starter. Faced with the prospect of losing John Vanbiesbrouck for nothing to one of the two new franchises, the team instead traded his rights to Vancouver in exchange for defenseman Doug Lidster; the Canucks, in turn, left the “Beezer” exposed. (Vancouver had no intention of keeping Vanbiesbrouck; rather, the trade was made for strategic reasons pertaining to the Expansion Draft. I could explain it here, but this post is already long enough. Google it.) Florida’s first GM, Bob Clarke, won a coin toss giving his team the first selection in the draft; Clarke chose Vanbiesbrouck, and Beezer went on to become the face of that franchise for the next half-decade.
With Keenan on board, Smith spent the summer, as well as most of the ’93-94 season itself, molding the roster for another run at the Cup. By this point, Keenan’s preference for playing veterans over rookies and other younger players was well documented, and Smith collaborated with his new coach in bringing in skaters experienced in playing hockey past April. He already dispensed Weight to pry Tikkanen from the Oilers, as well as acquired Edmonton’s long-time defensive stalwart, Kevin Lowe, in exchange for young Roman Oksiuta and a third round draft pick. (Fortunately, the latter was a transaction that didn’t come back to haunt the Rangers, as the draft pick didn’t pan out for Edmonton, and Oksiuta only managed a peak 51-point season before leaving North America after fewer than 200 NHL games.) During free agency, the team signed veteran defensive center Greg Gilbert, a key member of the latter half of the early ’80s Islander dynasty, as well as one of Coach Keenan’s former charges in Chicago during their Finals run in ’92.
After a solid but unspectacular opening month to the campaign, Smith pulled the trigger on the first of four major trades he would make that season, that sealed the team’s championship destiny. On November 2, the Rangers, Blackhawks, and Hartford Whalers completed a three-way transaction in which Chicago shipped iron-man winger Steve Larmer and defenseman Bryan Marchment to Hartford for young blueliner Eric Weinrich and former first round pick Patrick Poulin. Then the Whalers flipped Larmer to the Rangers along with agitating forward Nick Kypreos, depth d-man Barry Richter (no relation to Mike), and a sixth-round draft choice in that year’s draft. The price? Long-time two-way rearguard James Patrick and young scoring forward Darren Turcotte.
The other three trades all came on Trade Deadline Day, March 21, 1994. On that day, Smith made an extremely risky move in sending emerging power forward Tony Amonte to the Blackhawks for gritty depth forwards Brian Noonan and Stephane Matteau. Both Noonan and Matteau would prove critical to the Rangers’ postseason success, although Amonte would go on to enjoy multiple 40-goal campaigns in the Windy City. Later on, Smith and Toronto GM Cliff Fletcher swapped future Hall of Fame wingers, Smith bidding adieu to Mike Gartner, and Fletcher to Messier’s old linemate in Edmonton, Glenn Anderson, now in the back-9 of his career. (That trade technically also netted the Blueshirts a prospect and a draft choice, neither of which panned out.) Smith then capped his Deadline Day escapades by wheeling and dealing for yet ANOTHER veteran Oiler, Craig MacTavish; in the process, he sacrificed yet ANOTHER young Ranger prospect who would go on to bigger and better things, including a Stanley Cup of his own: Feisty center Todd Marchant.
Entering the postseason, the Rangers had seven players on their roster who had been part of at least one Stanley Cup championship squad in Edmonton. Further, they had another five who had played for Keenan’s Blackhawks in the 1992 Finals. (Mike Hudson was the fifth, and technically, he didn’t suit up in the playoffs for the Rangers that spring.) That was about half the entire roster!
Some pundits jokingly referred to the Blueshirts as the “Oilers/Blackhawks” as a result.
Once again, the Rangers won the Presidents’ Trophy for posting the NHL’s best regular season record. Oddly, a defenseman led the team in scoring, besting Messier by five points, and it wasn’t Brian Leetch; rather it was second-year rearguard Sergei Zubov, who posted 89 points on the strength of a whopping 77 assists. (Leetch, as expected, however, led Ranger blueliners with 23 goals.) Adam Graves entered the ranks of the game’s top snipers with 52 tallies. Richter put up unquestionably his best season, leading the league with 42 wins and posting five shutouts.
But the Presidents’ Trophy wasn’t what the Rangers were after. It showed in the opening round of the playoffs against their rivals from Long Island, in which the Blueshirts from Broadway steamrolled over the Islanders in four straight games. The Isles managed to put just three pucks past Mike Richter all series, while the Rangers lit up former–and future–Flyers goaltender Ron Hextall for 16, and his understudy, Jamie McLennan, for another 6. It was much the same story in Round 2, as the team dominated the Capitals in the first three games before finally showing some vulnerability in Game 4. They won a close one in the fifth game to take the series, and set up a showdown with their new rivals from across the Hudson River in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Devils finished just six points behind the Rangers that season, with the Atlantic Division’s, the Eastern Conference’s, and the league’s second best record. With Lemaire’s system firmly in place, the team enjoyed their best campaign to date, winning 47 contests and finishing second in the league in both goals scored and goals against. Goalie Martin Brodeur won the starting job and with it, the Calder Trophy as the league’s best rookie. The team benefited from a deftly balanced scoring attack; six players scored at least 20 goals, and three of their defensemen reached the 30-point plateau. Incidentally, it was a blueliner who led the Devils in scoring as well: None other than Scott Stevens, with 78 points, edging veteran snipers Stephane Richer and John MacLean. Sophomore rearguard Scott Niedermayer emerged as a top-level talent, with 10 tallies and 36 helpers of his own.
New Jersey lacked a true superstar forward. Ironically, the player on their roster who most closely fit that description was a former Ranger: Bernie Nicholls, acquired from Edmonton the previous season, and the main player involved in the Messier deal (other than Messier himself, of course).
It didn’t matter. The Devils bought into their new coach’s scheme, and boasted so much depth up front and on the blue line that a superstar simply wasn’t needed. That said, could Lemaire’s “trap” system contain Messier and the Blueshirt attack?
During the regular season, it didn’t. The Rangers and Devils met six times from October through early April. The Rangers won all six meetings, including an 8-3 drubbing the day after Christmas. Those losses cost the Devils the Conference title, and instead of a first-round date with Hextall and the Islanders, they instead faced the newest member of the league’s elite goaltending fraternity, Dominik Hasek, and the Buffalo Sabres, in a series that would go the distance and feature one of the most epic playoff games in league history: Game 6, in which the “Dominator” stopped all 70 pucks fired at him to guide his team to a 1-0 victory in a four-overtime nail-biter. The Devils prevailed 2-1 in Game 7, however, on a late goal by Claude Lemieux, to set up a date with Boston in Round 2, where they would drop the first two contests before rallying for four straight victories to clinch only their second ever Conference Finals appearance.
Their lack of regular season success against the Blueshirts initially seemed to carry over into Game 1 of the penultimate round. The Rangers led 3-2 late in the third period when the ever-reliable Claude Lemieux scored in the final minute of regulation to send the game to overtime. Fellow ex-Canadien Stephane Richer then won it for the Devils in the second O.T. period. The Rangers evened the series with a 4-0 win in Game 2, behind three third-period goals and a shutout from Richter–albeit one that required him to make only 16 saves. The Rangers prevailed in Game 3 on New Jersey ice in another overtime battle, before dropping the next two contests where they appeared to simply run out of gas.
The next day, May 24, 1994, Mark Messier sat in his stall at the Rangers’ practice facility, where he faced roughly a dozen reporters. The captain declared, “We’re going to go in there and win Game 6. We know we’re going to go in and win Game 6 and bring it back for Game 7.”
The New York Post splashed a condensed version of the statement across its back cover the following morning: WE’LL WIN TONIGHT.
News of Messier’s “guarantee” spread throughout the sports world almost instantly. Comparisons to Joe Namath and Super Bowl III predictably followed.
The stage was set.
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THE GAME
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The Rangers were forced to make two key changes to the lineup for Game 6. The first was the insertion of blueliner Doug Lidster to fill in for Jeff Beukeboom, who was serving a one-game suspension for a hit on New Jersey’s Stephane Richer in Game 5. The other was Ed Olczyk, playing for the injured Brian Noonan. It would be the first appearance in the 1994 Stanley Cup Playoffs for both players.
Messier won the opening face-off against New Jersey’s Bobby Carpenter. The Devils attacked early. Mike Richter made a key save on Carpenter less than two minutes into the game. Soon afterward, Stevens missed a partially open net on a two-on-one with veteran Devils rearguard, Tommy Albelin. Ironically, ESPN announcers Gary Thorne and Bill Clement remarked later in the broadcast that under Lemaire’s system, defensemen “[did] not play offense.” You wouldn’t have guessed that from watching this game. Another veteran Devils blueliner, Bruce Driver–a member of the 1988 Cinderella Devils squad–fired a shot on Richter that poked through the ex-Olympian’s pads and trickled just wide, very shortly after another near-miss by Bernie Nicholls. Richter, “holding the fort” early on, made yet another key save on young Devils forward Bill Guerin, who fired from the left boards.
Approaching the eight-minute mark of the opening period, Devils defenseman and ex-Soviet superstar Viacheslav Fetisov–or “Slava” for short–cleared the puck from his team’s zone up the middle of the ice, typically a no-no in the NHL. Another ex-Soviet, future Flyer Valeri Zelepukin, carried the puck into the Rangers’ zone along the left side boards, then made a cross-ice pass to Scott Niedermayer, who had already penetrated deep into the zone on the other side. Niedermayer attempted to center the puck to Guerin, right in front of the Ranger net. Richter attempted to play the puck, but his own teammate, Sergei Nemchinov stood in the way, his back to the approaching puck, which deflected off him, between Richter’s legs, and into the net. Curiously, Zelepukin was not awarded an assist on the goal. Regardless, the Devils had the lead, and the Brendan Byrne Arena crowd came alive.
Just over a minute later, Steve Larmer took the game’s first penalty after whacking at Brodeur’s glove on a missed scoring chance. Richter held firm throughout the ensuing New Jersey power play. The team in front of him, however, couldn’t seem to get anything going offensively. One exception was the persistent Stephane Matteau, who, on one sequence, skated throughout the Devils’ zone, drawing Brodeur out of his net, zipping around the net himself, losing but regaining possession of the puck, only to find no open Ranger teammates. The Blueshirt attack briefly generated some real chances, with Adam Graves and Brian Leetch being denied in quick succession, and Lidster hitting the crossbar shortly afterward.
With a one-goal lead, the Devils executed a 1-2-2 defensive scheme, not a “pure trap,” as noted by Clement in the broadcast.
At 15:12, Bobby Holik hauled down veteran Ranger defenseman–and former Flyer–Jay Wells just inside the New Jersey blue line. Referee Kerry Fraser–he of the perfect hair–called Holik for a hook. Brodeur stoned Leetch a short time later, but the Rangers’ power play was fruitless. Not long after Holik’s penalty expired, Glenn Anderson was signaled for a penalty, after trying to take out Claude Lemieux in the slot in front of Richter, but play continued as the Devils maintained possession of the puck. Just a couple of seconds later, Niedermayer fired a shot from the point, which Lemieux tipped into the net. Nicholls was awarded the other assist. 2-0, Devils.
1940. That year was undoubtedly coming to mind for Ranger fans at this point in the game.
The Rangers put some pressure on Brodeur late in the period but to no avail. The Devils began to clamp down, though still not fully employing the trap. The Blueshirts seemed to have no solution for the Devils defensive scheme, nor for the Devils’ 21-year-old netminder. New York’s MVP at this point was clearly Richter, who dutifully continued to make heartstopping saves on numerous Devil chances, particularly on odd-man rushes generated by the 1-2-2. This trend continued through most of the second period. Through the first half of the game, New Jersey was outshooting the team from across the Hudson by a roughly 2-1 margin.
Keenan used his team’s time-out a few minutes into the second, to give his team a chance to regroup, and to perhaps interrupt New Jersey’s momentum. Clement noted that the Rangers’ coach didn’t say a single word throughout the time-out, content to merely allow his skaters to rest for a bit.
Almost immediately after the break, Devils forward Tom Chorske hit the post, narrowly missing a chance to all but put the game away. Chorske, who came to the Devils with Richer in the 1991 trade that sent captain Kirk Muller and goalie Roland Melanson to Montreal, missed another chance less than two minutes later, on a two-on-one with Lemieux. Slowly, however, things began to change.
Richter’s play seemed to get better as the game progressed. Late in the period, he made numerous stops–including a brilliant sliding save on Richer–any of which could be deemed a game saver in retrospect. The Rangers attack also began to sustain itself a little more in the Devils’ zone, and the team started showing more fight, especially after the matching unsportsmanlike conduct minors to Messier and Nicholls at 14:07. A short while later, Nemchinov, seemingly determined to make up for his part in the first Jersey goal, fired a wrister on Brodeur, then grabbed the rebound and tried a wraparound, but to no avail. Finally, with just under two minutes remaining in the middle stanza, Kovalev patiently advanced inside the right circle after taking a drop pass from Messier, faked, then fired a shot past Brodeur to give the Rangers life. Brodeur was screened on the play by his own defenseman, Ken Daneyko, who was clearing Adam Graves from the crease area on the play. The Meadowlands came alive again, only this time it was Rangers fans. (Due to the proximity of East Rutherford, New Jersey to New York City, it was common for fans of each team to flock to the others’ building to take in a game.)
Tikkanen was subsequently called for tripping Richer with just over a minute left. The Blueshirts would end the second, and start the third period, shorthanded.
To that point in the ’94 playoffs, the Rangers had yet to win a game in which they trailed after two periods. Further, to that point in their entire history, they had yet to win a Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Early in the final stanza, the Devils caught a break when Stevens slid into Brodeur, dislodging the net, but no penalty was called. Richter continued to stone the New Jersey offense at the other end. Then, not three minutes into the period, Leetch sent a clearing pass to Kovalev, who entered the offensive zone with Messier and Graves. Messier took Kovalev’s pass, skated into the right circle, and dispensed an expertly timed wrist shot past Brodeur to tie the game.
The crowd was now more decidedly pro-New York. Matteau, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime of Game 3, very nearly gave his team the lead in this game almost immediately after the first Messier tally, but he would have to wait one more game to be a hero again. More on that later.
With 8:28 remaining, Niedermayer and Esa Tikkanen were both called for roughing after almost coming to blows but refusing to separate. With the teams at four-on-four, Leetch once again took the puck into the zone, dropping a pass for Kovalev, who shot it. Brodeur gave up the rebound, and too much open net, to an oncoming Messier. Not even Scott Stevens could react fast enough, as Messier quickly slapped the puck past him, Brodeur, and a falling Nicholls, into the net, to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead amidst the cheers of the crowd, whose Ranger contingent seemed to grow with each Blueshirt goal.
Lemaire was now forced to abandon the 1-2-2 and any form of the trap with his team down a goal with under eight minutes remaining. The game seemed to take on a 1980s “firewagon” nature, with constant back-and-forth action. Finally, with 2:49 remaining in regulation, Anderson was called for slashing, giving the Devils a late power play. A livid Mike Keenan protested the call to referee Fraser, his anger warranted, since just before the call, Devils winger John MacLean had actually taken a whack at Anderson with his stick. The ESPN cameras caught it, but the officiating crew apparently did not.
Roughly halfway through the power play, after a stoppage with 1:53 remaining, Lemaire opted to pull Brodeur, giving New Jersey a two-man advantage. It immediately backfired. Messier won the ensuing face-off against Nicholls. The Devils regained possession. From behind the end line on the right side, MacLean attempted to pass to Lemieux, who was tied up in front of the Ranger net. The puck went by him, into the slot, and right to the stick of Messier, who turned and launched it down the middle of the ice.
“For the empty net, Mark Messier” announced ESPN’s Gary Thorne. The puck crossed the goal line, and Thorne erupted, “DO YOU BELIEVE IT? DO YOU BELIEVE IT? HE SAID THEY WOULD WIN GAME 6! HE’S JUST GOTTEN THE HAT TRICK!”
With thrown objects–namely hats–finding their way to the Meadowlands ice surface, a long delay followed, allowing the Rangers skaters, including Messier, to take a breather. When play finally resumed, Lemaire kept Brodeur on the bench. His team kept the Rangers at bay for the remainder of regulation, but could not generate any quality scoring chances. Frustration boiled over for the home team, as Nicholls was sent to the dressing room, after being assessed a double minor for high-sticking and roughing and earning an additional ten-minute misconduct in the process. Anderson and Stevens received ten-minute misconducts on the same play, with Anderson earning a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty as well. Just three seconds after that, Greg Gilbert–virtually a non-factor in this contest–and Ken Daneyko took coincidental minor penalties for slashing. The final 17 seconds were played relatively drama-free.
4-2, Rangers, final score. Series tied at three games apiece. Mark Messier figured into all four Ranger goals, with a hat trick and an assist on the Kovalev goal. Richter stopped 28 of 30 shots. At the other end, Brodeur faced 35 shots, 20 of which were from the sticks of Messier, Kovalev, and Leetch.
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AFTERMATH
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In Game 7, Brian Noonan and Jeff Beukeboom both returned for the Rangers. Ed Olczyk returned to the bench; Doug Lidster, however, remained in the lineup. Instead, Keenan elected to scratch young blueliner Alexander Karpovtsev from the lineup. After surrendering the tying goal with just seconds to play in regulation, the Rangers prevailed in the second overtime, courtesy of Stephane Matteau. New York went on to defeat the Vancouver Canucks, Lidster’s former squad, in another dramatic seven-game series, one of the most exciting Stanley Cup Finals ever played. Brian Leetch was awarded the Conn Smythe as the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. It was the team’s first championship in 54 years. They have not won another since.
New Jersey had the last laugh, in any case. While the Rangers were one-and-done as far as Cups were concerned, the Devils were built for the long haul, and the very next season, Jacques Lemaire’s trap system continued to stifle the most potent offenses in the league. Despite finishing second to the rising Flyers in the Atlantic Division, and with a record just four games over .500, the Devils soundly defeated Boston in the opening round of the 1995 playoffs, then stunned Jaromir Jagr and the Penguins in Round 2 in just five games before defeating the Flyers, fresh off a sweep of the defending champion Rangers, in the Eastern Conference Finals. The team then met Slava Fetisov’s new squad, the Detroit Red Wings, in the Cup Finals. To the shock of the entire hockey world, New Jersey triumphed in four straight for their first ever Stanley Cup. Claude Lemieux, who led the team with 13 goals, won the Conn Smythe, edging out Scott Stevens and Martin Brodeur. He would leave the team that off-season for Colorado, the Devils’ old home, and where the Quebec Nordiques had just relocated. Now the Colorado Avalanche, the team won the Stanley Cup that very year, making Lemieux one of just a handful of players to win Lord Stanley in back-to-back seasons with two different teams. As for the ’95 Devils, Stephane Richer topped New Jersey players with 21 points, with the newly acquired Neal Broten finishing second with 19. Scott Niedermayer led the team’s defensemen with 11. Fetisov would finally win two Cups of his own, as part of Detroit coach Scotty Bowman’s famous “Russian Five,” in 1997 and ’98.
One player absent from the Devils’ title run was Bernie Nicholls, who left the team via free agency the previous summer and signed with Chicago, where he would remain a better than point-per-game player over two seasons before closing out his NHL career in San Jose. In 1995, Nicholls once again found himself in the Conference Finals, only to once again fall short of victory, this time to Detroit. It was the third time in his career he had reached the penultimate round, all three occasions occurring in a four-year span–the first was 1992 with Edmonton–and in all three occasions, finding himself on the losing end.
The Devils didn’t turn into a dynasty, but remained a top tier contender for the next decade. After surprisingly missing the postseason the year after their initial triumph, Jersey downed the Flyers in the Conference Finals again in Y2K, going on to dethrone the defending champion Dallas Stars in the final round to win Cup #2. One member of that team was a member of the ’94 Rangers, Sergei Nemchinov. A third Cup would follow three years later. Martin Brodeur, Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Sergei Brylin (a rookie in ’95) and Ken Daneyko remained from the first championship squad, with Daneyko dating back all the way to the franchise’s second season in East Rutherford.
Across the Hudson, Neil Smith’s numerous trades for veterans to load up for the ’94 Cup run eventually caught up to him. The Rangers remained a top team for three more seasons, relying on even more veterans–and even more ex-Oilers–to do so. An aging Jari Kurri came to the Big Apple in ’96 for a run that ended at the hands of Jagr’s Pens. He left in the off-season, but in his place, the Rangers welcomed, through free agency, none other than the greatest ex-Oiler of all, No. 99. Gretzky reunited with Messier that season to take the Blueshirts back to the Eastern Conference Finals, only to fall to Eric Lindros and the Flyers in five games.
The summer following that loss, the unthinkable happened. Now a free agent himself, Mark Messier returned to western Canada, signing with Vancouver, where he would see a noticeable drop in his output over his three seasons as a Canuck. Captain Fantastic returned to New York in 2000, where he would finish out his legendary 25-year pro career. Upon retirement, No. 11 was the second all-time leading point scorer in NHL history. He has since been surpassed by Jaromir Jagr.
Alexei Kovalev turned in several commendable seasons in New York, but did not truly reach his potential until a trade to Pittsburgh in late 1998. There, he would team with Jagr to form one of the league’s deadliest forward tandems. Kovalev would briefly return to Broadway in 2003 before finding himself on the move again a year later, this time to Montreal, where he would experience a short-lived resurgence.
Brian Leetch almost finished his career as a Ranger, remaining with the team through the lean years of the late ’90s and early 2000s, until his trade to Toronto in 2004. He played with Boston the year after the 2004-05 lockout before hanging them up. He is one of just a handful of defensemen in NHL history with over 1,000 career points.
Adam Graves left in 2001, spending the last two seasons of his career in San Jose.
One player who did finish his career in New York: Steve Larmer, who decided to retire after the lockout-shortened 1995 season. Another one was Jeff Beukeboom, who retired in 1999 after several injury-plagued campaigns.
Much of the ’94 team, however, moved on to other squads within just a couple years. Zubov was traded to Pittsburgh in the 1995 off-season, packaged with Petr Nedved in the deal that brought Luc Robitaille and Ulf Samuelsson to New York.
Coach Mike Keenan left the team almost immediately. He joined the St. Louis Blues as both head coach and general manager the next season. As GM, he would acquire quite a few of the ex-Oilers and ex-Blackhawks from his former employer. He started with Esa Tikkanen, obtaining him with Doug Lidster in the trade that originally sent Nedved to the Big Apple. A few months later, he signed Glenn Anderson as a free agent, eventually releasing him but later reacquiring him for the 1996 playoff run. By that point, Iron Mike had also brought Brian Noonan and Stephane Matteau to St. Louis, and later traded Dale Hawerchuk to the Flyers for Craig MacTavish, who had signed with the Orange and Black the summer after winning the Cup with the Rangers.
One ex-Oiler, Kevin Lowe, actually returned to Edmonton in 1996 for the final two campaigns of his career, both of which saw that team return to the postseason and upset top Cup contenders in the opening round. That Oiler squad was led, in part, by two ex-Ranger prospects: Doug Weight and Todd Marchant. Ultimately, they were joined by ex-Devils Bill Guerin and Valeri Zelepukin.
Later in ’96, Mike Richter would put on one of the most dominant goaltending displays the international stage has ever witnessed, backstopping Team USA to victory in the World Cup of Hockey.
His counterpart, Brodeur, however, would go on to become the winningest goaltender in NHL history, and is certain to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame later this year. When that happens, he will join his teammates Stevens, Niedermayer, Fetisov, and Joe Nieuwendyk (a member of the 2003 Devils Cup-winning team), as well as Brian Leetch and Mark Messier.
R.I.P. Alexander Karpovtsev, who was an assistant coach with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl and among the 44 members of that organization killed in the crash of that team’s chartered plane on September 7, 2011. He was just 41 years old.
Watch Gary Thorne’s famous call here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2W96aCLP_Q