SI Flashback: Stanley Cup 1987

The Oilers foiled the Flyers' comeback by winning Game 7 and regaining the Stanley Cup

By Austin Murphy

June 1, 1987 Paul Bereswill

Did you notice who was the second Oiler who got to skate with the Stanley Cup, after captain Wayne Gretzky had welcomed it back to Edmonton on Sunday night? It was defenseman Steve Smith, whose grin outshone the silver trophy. Smith hung on to the Cup with both hands, as if to prevent its escape, and shook it as he circled Northlands Arena, until all memories of last season had been dislodged.

In the view of Smith and his teammates, they had closed out last year's campaign prematurely, losing to the Calgary Flames in seven games in the semifinal of the playoffs. In the deciding game, Smith had banked the puck off the back of Edmonton goalie Grant Fuhr's leg and into the Oilers' net. The calamity stood up as Calgary's winning goal.

One year and one month later, in the seventh game of the '87 finals, Edmonton reclaimed the Cup by beating the Philadelphia Flyers 3-1. The win not only gave the Oilers their third Stanley Cup in four years, but it also showed that last season was an aberration, that Edmonton is the home of the NHL's dynasty in progress. Or as Gretzky put it, "The Oilers proved that their hockey -- emphasizing speed, offense, skating -- is the kind of hockey that wins Stanley Cup championships."

Cog in the comeback Edmonton's real problem was Philadelphia rookie goaltender Hextall, who had flat-out stonewalled Gretzky & Co. for two straight games and hardly seemed bothered by the pressure. Instead, the normally combative Hextall grew more confident -- and more irascible -- as the series wore on. Oilers who dared skate near his crease came away with welts on their legs. "Ron Hextall is the best goaltender I've ever played against," said Gretzky ... Hextall relaxed between games by playing golf. Asked why he played 36 holes one day, he replied, "Because it got too dark to play 54." Flyers cancel Oilers' victory parade in Game 5 Now, down 2-0 to the Oilers, Keenan slapped together a line consisting of Pelle Eklund, Rick Tocchet and Brian Propp, his three best available offensive players. ( Tim Kerr, whose 58 goals were second only to Gretzky's 62 in the NHL regular season, sat out the last month of the playoffs with a shoulder injury.) By the end of the game Eklund, Tocchet and Propp had been christened the Life Line, because they had allowed the Flyers to live another day. With the feisty Tocchet scoring two goals and Propp getting four assists, the Flyers overcame 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to win 4-3. There would be no hangovers this night in northern Alberta. Flyers gain momentum in Philadelphia Edmonton kept its cool while killing off an inordinate number of power plays. In [Game 6] the Philadelphia aggressors escaped penalties while the Edmonton retaliators received them. In fact, the Oilers found themselves in twice as many shorthanded situations as the Flyers -- six to three. It was while Edmonton's Glenn Anderson was serving a penalty for retaliating after being high-sticked that the Flyers tied the score at 2-2, Propp taking a perfect pass from Eklund and beating Fuhr from the slot with seven minutes to play. It was only the fifth man-advantage score of the series for Philadelphia, whose power play this season was essentially one man: Tim Kerr. The 17,222 Spectrum fanatics were still celebrating Propp's score when reserve defenseman J.J. Daigneault unloaded a blast from the blue line that flew past the screened Fuhr for the goal that gave the Flyers a 3-2 victory and a tied series. The Oilers were thoroughly spooked. For the second straight game the Anderson- Mark Messier - Kent Nilsson line had not scored a point. Having the roughest time was Anderson, who had five penalties called on him in Game 6 and, of course, got to watch Propp's tying goal from the penalty box.

Then there is Flyers hockey: guts, opportunism, relentless forechecking and cortisone shots for the asking, the kind of hockey that rallied Philadelphia from a three-games-to-one deficit to a three-three series tie and a 1-1 score with 35 minutes to play in Game 7. The thunderous applause that filled the Northlands Coliseum Sunday night as Gretzky and his teammates skated triumphantly with the Cup was an expression of relief as much as it was of jubilation.

After all, the Oilers had been expected to win the Cup five nights before. The champagne was on ice, the parades and parties planned. And when the Oilers, who have always been able to smell blood in the water, skated to a quick 2-0 lead in Game 5, it was time to start the countdown to the cork- popping. But the Flyers spoiled all the party plans. That morning, coming off the Northlands ice after a light workout, they had seen the workers carting cases of champagne into the Edmonton dressing room. They had read in the local papers that Edmonton Mayor Laurence Decore had already scheduled the Oilers' victory parade to begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Behind the din of anticipation, like the woman in the Monty Python skit, the Flyers could be heard objecting stridently in the background: I'm not dead yet! ...

In Games 5 and 6, Edmonton had contributed to Philadelphia's victories by abandoning its attacking style and trying to sit on its lead. On Sunday night [in Game 7 with the Oilers leading 2-1], however, the Oilers came out shooting on Ron Hextall in the third period, and in no time at all the Flyers were dead on their feet. The puck seemed to be in the Philadelphia end for the entire 20 minutes.

"It was their best period of hockey in the entire series," said Flyer alternate captain Mark Howe.

"They just wouldn't let us get to the net," added Flyers coach Mike Keenan. "We couldn't get an offensive opportunity."

It wasn't that bad, but it was close. The Flyers managed two shots at Fuhr in the period; the Oilers blasted 12 at Hextall, including a slapper by Anderson that broke through the goalie's pads to make the score 3-1. Hextall stopped 40 of 43 shots in Game 7 -- 204 of 229 overall -- and was named series MVP.

But the parties -- and the Stanley Cup -- were in the room down the hall.

They said it ...

Issue date: June 8, 1987

Capital punishment

[Ed. Note: Excerpts follow from SI's covereage of the Islanders-Capitals first-round series -- which turned out to include one of the longest, and most exciting, games in NHL history. It is 10 minutes before two on Easter Sunday morning in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Gathered inside a building, 18,130 men, women and children -- and 40 bedraggled hockey players -- have been listening over and over again to a tape of a hauntingly familiar refrain. It is the theme from The Twilight Zone. De ... de ... deee ... de De ... de ... deee ... de You're traveling through another dimension: a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. That's the goal up ahead . . . . Out on the ice at the Capital Centre, two teams, the New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals, are embroiled in the seventh and deciding game of their Round 1 series in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They began play at 7:40 on Saturday night, more than six hours ago. Right now the score is 2-2, and they have just begun their fourth 20-minute, sudden-death overtime period. Goaltender Kelly Hrudey of the Islanders, who has turned away 72 shots and will stop one more, has lost all track of time. The other players have long since stopped jumping over the boards to go out on their shifts, opting instead to shuffle through the door. Zamboni driver John Millsback has already groomed the ice seven times and still has no idea when he will be able to go home. "I'm down to a quarter tank," he says with concern. De ... de ... deee ... de De ... de ... deee ... de At 1:58 a.m., the fifth-longest game in NHL history -- and the longest since 1943 -- ended abruptly when Islander center Pat LaFontaine beat goaltender Bob Mason with a 35-foot slap shot. LaFontaine's shot, the 57th that Mason had faced, came at 8:47 of the fourth OT, after the weary teams had played 68:47 of sudden death and 128:47 in all. The game was longer than two games. For the Islanders, it capped two remarkable comebacks. Not only had they lost three of the first four games to the Capitals, but they had also needed a Bryan Trottier goal with 5:23 to play in regulation -- some 3 1/2 hours earlier -- just to get into sudden death. Because of exhaustion, the Islanders' exultation at their victory was tame. Few of the joyous, surprised, panting players could muster the strength to execute even a medium-high five. Besides, it was time to start thinking about the Flyers. The Islanders would face them in Philadelphia on Monday night, which had now become tomorrow. "Great game," said first-year Islander coach Terry Simpson "... for the Flyers." -- Austin Murphy Issue date: April 27, 1987