SI Flashback: Stanley Cup 1995

The surprising Devils crushed the favored Red Wings four games to one to win their first Stanley Cup

By Michael Farber

McMullen feels heat to leave THIS IS HELL proclaimed a sign in the southwest corner of the rink, a sentiment with which Devil owner John McMullen probably would not quarrel. McMullen is vexed with the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which runs the arena in the Meadowlands, and has threatened to take a sweetheart deal and move the Devils to Nashville, home of the Grand Ole Opry and Ms. Parton. Goodbye, Jersey; hello, Dolly? Thus, the Devils could become the first team in major pro sports to win a championship in one city and defend it in another. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that the question of the move, which provided discordant background music to the spectacular rise of an underappreciated team, would be addressed after the finals. The fans, who believed Bettman won't stand in the way of a relocation to Nashville, booed Bettman when he presented the Cup to New Jersey captain Scott Stevens , but most seemed to buy Bettman's premise of play now, fret later. Other than the occasional chant or sign -- NASHVILLE ALREADY HAS ENOUGH PEOPLE WITHOUT TEETH read one placard in New Jersey at Game 3 -- Devil fans seemed content to tailgate in the parking lots, knock beach balls about in the stands and let the Nashville story stay in the background. This was a classic case of denial, although it wasn't too hard imagining those Stanley Cup smacks as a last kiss. Not just another Claude Claude Lemieux scored only two goals in the series but deserved the recognition he received as the postseason MVP. Lemieux had just six goals in 45 regular-season games, but after signing a three-year, $3.6 million contract just before the postseason began, he produced his best hockey, rifling in 13 playoff goals, including three game-winners. "I wish we would have taken the deal for Lemieux when they offered him around in February," Red Wing coach Scott Bowman said. "He's a clutch player who scores a lot of important goals." Undone early The series hinged on Game 2. After practice following Detroit's 2-1 opening-game loss, Paul Coffey gathered his fellow Red Wings in a corner of the Joe Louis Arena rink. Coffey wanted to remind his teammates that they had no excuses for the Game 1 stinker. Coffey, with four Stanley Cup rings from his days with the Edmonton Oilers (1984, '85 and '87) and the Pittsburgh Penguins ('91), rightfully was exercising leadership. However, if a player is going to speak out, he'd better be able to back up his words. In Game 2 Coffey was on the ice for the first three New Jersey goals in the 4-2 defeat.

As champagne corks popped 50 feet away, Stephane Richer , still in uniform right down to his skates, punched numbers into a pay phone outside the New Jersey Devil dressing room in the Byrne Meadowlands Arena. Richer already had spoken to his mother in Quebec and now was trying to reach his golf club, where friends had gathered to watch last Saturday night's Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, which the Devils had won 5-2 to complete a sweep of the Detroit Red Wings. The line was busy.

Of all the bouquets owed the swamp-dwellin', trap-playin', Cup-winnin' Devils, the most fragrant in this era of lottery-jackpot salaries is this: New Jersey is not a cellular-phone kind of team. Praise the old-fashioned hockey virtues and pass the quarters.

If Richer on the pay phone in full battle gear looked absurd, that scene was no more bizarre than the celebration that had swirled moments earlier on the ice. The Devils took turns skating with the Cup, holding the hardware aloft and then smooching it, not prissy, salon air kisses, but hard, lips-on-silver smackers. The 19,040 witnesses roared their approval ...

The Devils lost a Game 7 double-overtime heartbreaker to the eventual champion New York Rangers in the 1994 Eastern Conference finals, and they made the next step in 1995. The decisiveness of their win in the Cup finals, however, made it seem like a leap. New Jersey outplayed, outhit and outcoached Detroit in a series that left the Wings as stranded as a seedy hitchhiker ...

The Devils have the formula for success for the late 1990s: size and speed. Their top 12 forwards were, on average, a half inch taller and nine pounds heavier than the Wings'. And if New Jersey couldn't handle Detroit in a skills competition, the Devils skated better than the flashier Wings. "I thought the guys deserved a little more [respect] from their opponents," New Jersey coach Jacques Lemaire said after the series. "That's one reason our guys were aggressive, because they got no credit." ...

Throughout the four games the Wings had no time to make plays, because New Jersey was in their faces, breaking up rushes, deflecting shots, forechecking their defense. Detroit, which averaged 36 shots per game in the first three rounds of the playoffs but were limited to 18 against New Jersey, hadn't seen anything like it all year ...

Of course, the Red Wings hadn't seen the Devils all year. Because of the compressed schedule that resulted from the lockout, east played east and west played west. And west seemed best. "Ten minutes into the first game I knew we were going to win this series," New Jersey center Bobby Carpenter said. "We hadn't played them, we saw they had the best record, we heard how good they were, and we didn't know what to expect. But in those 10 minutes we found we could play with them, check them. I knew then we were going to win. Winning it in four, that was a surprise."

They said it ...
"We never really got frustrated," Detroit captain Steve Yzerman said. "It didn't go long enough for us to get frustrated."

Issue date: July 3, 1995