Seven Games To Glory

The Rangers outlasted the upstart Vancouver Canucks to finally capture that elusive Stanley Cup

By Michael Farber

We interrupt this New York Ranger Stanley Cup celebration to bring you a call from the President of the United States.

"Brian?"

"Mr. President," said Brian Leetch, winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

"Congratulations, man," Bill Clinton said. "I've been sitting here alone in the White House watching this, cheering for you, biting my fingernails, screaming and yelling."

They chatted for a minute before Clinton hung up.

"Was that Dana Carvey?" Leetch asked.

Who knew? The Rangers hadn't won the Stanley Cup in 54 years, had never even had a chance to win it at home until this series, and now New York and a sport that until recently seemed like the poor cousin in America were getting the full Bubba treatment. Leetch had every right to be incredulous.

The Curse is now dead. Maybe in the year 2048 some wiseacre NHL fans will chant "1994" in derision, but the "1994" rocking the Garden Tuesday night was as much an ablution as the Moet & Chandon baths the Rangers took in their dressing room. New York had survived a tense Game 7, beating the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 behind goals by Leetch, Adam Graves and Mark Messier and spectacular goaltending by Mike Richter.

By winning, the Rangers overcame their own sorry tradition and the swirling rumors about coach Mike Keenan's imminent departure. Keenan-to-Detroit Red Wings stories dominated the end of the series the way that not even Leetch, with five goals against the Canucks, could. As in the old days, the circus had come to the Garden during the Stanley Cup finals.

Keenan firmly denied the rumors on the eve of Game 7, five days after the story broke. Meanwhile, New York general manager Neil Smith had little to say. There is no telling what might happen next in the uneasy relationship between Smith and Keenan, but as Messier passed around the Cup, there seemed to be plenty of glory to go around.

This was the celebration that was supposed to have happened after Game 5 in New York. Paradise Delayed. The assembling of 50 extra police officers inside and an additional 300 outside Madison Square Garden five days earlier had been a mere dress rehearsal, albeit probably at time and a half.

There had been no doubt that TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT, as the New York Post headline screamed the day of Game 5. (The last Ranger Stanley Cup was eight years old when Truman beat Dewey.) This was the first time in Ranger history that they were in a position to win the Stanley Cup on home ice, and the scalpers were charging such exorbitant prices (one report put it at $2,000 a seat), you would have thought that Barbra Streisand were singing the national anthems.

The Rangers themselves were getting ready to party. In fact, they were so busy filling out their post-Cup victory schedule, they could barely squeeze in 60 minutes against the Canucks. Thursday: team party. Friday: guest shot for 20 on David Letterman's show. Saturday: cookout with Mayor Rudy Giuliani at Gracie Mansion.

The Rangers were done in during Game 5 by two parts Pavel Bure and Geoff Courtnall, one part hubris. Keenan said media whooping before the game had seduced his players, although the loss was better explained by the four goals that Bure and Courtnall split. Midway through the first period linesman Randy Mitton blew an offsides call, thereby incorrectly negating an apparent Esa Tikkanen goal that would have given the Rangers a 1-0 lead. Not only did New York lose the goal, but it also lost defenseman Jeff Beukeboom, who was ejected for having been the instigating pugilist during a difference of opinion that arose during that play.

Curse-ologists pointed to the phantom offsides as the defining moment in the 6-3 defeat, but New York really was a victim of its own pride. After scoring three goals in a 5:35 stretch of helter-skelter hockey to tie the game in the third period, the Rangers inexplicably continued to gamble. Their assault yielded a spate of three-on-twos going the other way, which resulted in three more Vancouver goals.

As the New York players filed off the Garden ice, they were hailed by chants of "Let's Go, Ran-juhs!" Apparently sound doesn't carry 3,085 miles. Two nights later in Vancouver in Game 6, the Canucks dominated New York 4-1. Suddenly the vaunted Ranger experience -- nine players are 30 years or older -- looked like nothing more than old age. If the Rangers were going to drink from the Stanley Cup, it seemed that commissioner Gary Bettman would have to fill it with Geritol.

How could this have happened? New York had grabbed a 3-1 series lead before the wheels began looking like those on an old Packard. Indeed, the Rangers had played well enough to have won the Cup in four straight. If Leetch's overtime drive in Game 1 hadn't dinged the crossbar seconds before the Canucks came back up ice to score the winner in a 3-2 victory, not even goalie Kirk McLean's 52 stops would have saved Vancouver.

Unlike the cagey New Jersey Devils, who tried to contain New York's explosiveness with speed bumps in the neutral zone, the Canucks were content to play the Rangers straight up -- speed on speed, size versus size, captain Mark Messier versus captain Trevor Linden, up-and-down hockey. In Game 2 the matchup certainly did look like No. 1 (New York) in the regular season versus No. 14 (Vancouver) as the Rangers outshot the Canucks 40-29 and won 3-1.

Bure, with just one assist, had been quiet up to that point. But in the first period of Game 3, at the Pacific Coliseum, Bure had a career. He beat Richter on a breakaway 63 seconds into the match and later drew two penalties -- the Russian Rocket in full orbit. Alas for Vancouver, Bure was not the Russian Rocket Scientist: With 1:39 left in the opening period he high-sticked the Rangers' utility defenseman, Jay Wells, in the face, breaking his nose and cutting him severely enough that he needed four stitches above his left eye. Referee Andy vanHellemond gave Bure five-minute major and game-misconduct penalties. New York's Glenn Anderson scored 58 seconds later, and the Canucks, without their best player, seemed to lose heart. When the 16,150 in the Coliseum waved their trademark white towels, it looked suspiciously like surrender.

Leetch scored twice in Game 3, but his Game 4 performance will endure longer than the Ranger jinx. For a 10-minute stretch in the second period, he and Bure lost themselves in the moment. Six-on-six turned into one-on-one each time they touched the puck. These were men playing for the Stanley Cup, but they could have been kids on a frozen pond in Connecticut -- or Moscow. They went end-to-end, first one, then the other, as their teammates melted into the background.

Bure had the chance to put the game away with a penalty shot in the second period and the Canucks leading 2-1. But Richter boomed out of his net to take away any angle on a long shot, retreated to the crease, then stood his ground when Bure deked and then kicked out his right skate at the last nanosecond to make the save. "A classic confrontation between the game's most electrifying player and an outstanding goaltender who doesn't get nearly enough credit," Keenan said. The save reversed the momentum, and the Rangers' Sergei Zubov scored to make it 2-2 late in that period.

The game, however, remained tied with fewer than five minutes remaining in regulation. With New York on a power play, Leetch blew past defenseman Brian Glynn at the Vancouver blue line and feathered a gossamer pass over a stick to Alexei Kovalev, who hit the roof of the Canuck net for the winning goal. Leetch said he had been embarrassed by comparisons with Bobby Orr that Vancouver coach Pat Quinn had bestowed upon him, but after Leetch's four-point night in the Rangers' 4-2 win, it was Orr who would have been flattered.

Leetch was unofficially anointed the 1994 Conn Smythe Trophy winner that night as the champagne was put on ice. Still, Messier insisted that the Rangers would not become complacent. "We're only going to look ahead to the next 20 minutes," he said. Six 20-minute periods later, the Stanley Cup was very much in doubt.

But on Monday, Keenan delivered a speech Messier called "the most intense, emotional, greatest speech I've heard in 16 years of hockey." The Rangers seemed renewed in Game 7, twice taking two-goal leads and holding off Vancouver by controlling three face-offs in their own zone in the final 37.8 seconds.

In the stands a sign read NOW I CAN DIE IN PEACE.

Issue date: June 22, 1994