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Sensational showdown Cup finals should be a thrilling seven-game ride
Updated: Monday May 28, 2001 10:49 PM
It's been a long time since the two best teams in hockey met in the Stanley Cup finals, but that's what the showdown between the New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche represents. On paper this promises to be the best matchup since 1984, when the Wayne Gretzky- led Edmonton Oilers, who were the NHL regular-season champs, met the New York Islanders, who were four-time defending Stanley Cup champs. The Isles went down in five games that year, and an Oilers dynasty was born. The Colorado and New Jersey squads are both in their primes. The Avs led the NHL this season with 118 points; the Devils led the Eastern Conference with 111. The Avs, with three-time Cup winner Patrick Roy in goal, allowed just 192 goals during the year. The Devils, backstopped by two-time Cup winner Martin Brodeur, allowed just 195. Both teams dispatched their respective opponents in the conference finals in five games, so they'll be relatively fresh when the series starts Saturday. Colorado is missing star center Peter Forsberg, who ruptured his spleen in Game 7 of the Western semis. The Avalanche have home-ice advantage and a sentimental edge in the form of veteran defenseman Ray Bourque, who has appeared in more playoff games than any man in history without getting his name on Lord Stanley's mug. But New Jersey plays great on the road, and if sentiment had any place in sports Ernie Banks would have played in a World Series. So I'm going with the Devils in seven. The NHL could use a seven-game final. The last time it happened was in 1994, when the New York Rangers beat a surprising and generally mediocre Vancouver team (the Canucks were 41-40-3 in the regular season) to snap a 54-year championship drought. The last seven-game final before that was in 1987, a brilliant series between the prepotent Oilers and the gritty, young Philadelphia Flyers. You have to go all the way back to 1971 to find the previous seven-game final, when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Blackhawks in a thrilling Game 7 played at the dearly departed Chicago Stadium.
That's just three times in the last 30 years that the Stanley Cup has come down to the final game. Small wonder hockey's television ratings are abysmal. Anyone who calls himself a sports fan will tune into a 60-minute, do-or-die showdown whether he has a rooting interest in one of the teams or not. That's the secret to the Super Bowl's ratings. But the NHL playoffs drag on for two months, and a Cup-clinching Game 4 in mid-June when one team's up three games to none is the definition of anti-climax. Only diehards and sports bars tune in. Unfortunately, four of the last six Stanley Cup finals were four-game sweep-a-ramas, not exactly the recipe for creating mass-market appeal for the league's showcase event. There's no clear explanation for this dearth of Cup drama, but too often one team is overmatched, having advanced on the back of a hot goaltender (see: Buffalo in 1999, Washington in 1998, Florida in 1996). Plus, there's the fatigue factor. I've long suspected that the playoffs are so protracted and punishing that by the time the two survivors reach the finals the players lack the mental and physical energy to bounce back from a loss. The underdogs go gently into that good night and begin work on their golf games. I'd be surprised if that were to happen with either of these teams. Both the Avalance and Devils are molded from the sort of championship clay that rages against the dying of the light. Their rosters share an interesting mix of young legs and old heads who know how long a summer can be when you come so far and then lose. Both teams have veteran goalies who are best when the stakes are highest. Fingers crossed, it could prove to be must-see TV. Sports Illustrated senior writer E.M. Swift is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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