1993 Stanley Cup Final/Your Thoughts Going In?

[Jim MacDonald]

Hey Everyone,

I hope you guys and gals are having a good summer so far (or as good as can be had). Summertime here in the states in Michigan.

The 93 finals was just a bit before I was truly "into" hockey and old enough to appreciate its nuances. If I could "test-drive" your guys/gals' memories, do you remember what your thoughts were going into the series?

If I can add a couple secondary items to get your feedback:

Did anyone REALLY strongly like the Kings going in just because of Gretzky's recent magic in game 7 versus Toronto? With the thought the magic would carry right on through the finals?

Was Roy winning the Conn Smythe for this playoff a pretty clear-cut choice? Or did he have any teammates that in your eyes would've also been an excellent pick?

Did a lot of you honestly think after the McSorely illegal stick and the Habs winning game 2, at that moment in time, think Montreal was very likely to win (even with the series being nodded at a game apiece)?

Thanks gang!-Jim

Click to read more...

 

[Gambitman]

For me I thought the Kings had a good chance to win simply because Gretzky had turned the clock back and was on fire. Not just because of game 7 against Toronto. Check out the short handed goal with Kurri about 50 seconds into this video. I was worried though as Roy could steal a series and was much better than Hrudy. I do think if the Kings win game 2 they have a good chance to win the series, but that is by no means guaranteed.

On the other side of the coin though I probably underestimated Montreal because I thought they were an average team at best with an exceptional goalie. They played really well together though Muller, Damphousse, Bellows, Desjardins etc.

 

[Staniowski]

Hey Everyone,

I hope you guys and gals are having a good summer so far (or as good as can be had). Summertime here in the states in Michigan.

The 93 finals was just a bit before I was truly "into" hockey and old enough to appreciate its nuances. If I could "test-drive" your guys/gals' memories, do you remember what your thoughts were going into the series?

If I can add a couple secondary items to get your feedback:

Did anyone REALLY strongly like the Kings going in just because of Gretzky's recent magic in game 7 versus Toronto? With the thought the magic would carry right on through the finals?

Was Roy winning the Conn Smythe for this playoff a pretty clear-cut choice? Or did he have any teammates that in your eyes would've also been an excellent pick?

Did a lot of you honestly think after the McSorely illegal stick and the Habs winning game 2, at that moment in time, think Montreal was very likely to win (even with the series being nodded at a game apiece)?

Thanks gang!-Jim

I can't really remember exactly what I thought going into the series, but I think I would've thought the Habs were likely to win.

Roy would've been the overwhelming favourite for MVP on the Habs, and same for Gretzky on the Kings, based on the first 3 rounds.

Yes, I think the Habs were likely to win after Game 2, and very likely after Game 3.

I think the goaltending was roughly equal in the finals.

The big difference is the Habs' forwards played very good defense, and the Habs played a much more cohesive game than the Kings did.

The Habs played well against Gretzky.

The great offensive centre - Gretzky - and the great defensive centre - Carbonneau - were both significantly past their best hockey.

The Kings weren't a very strong team, and this is a big reason why the Habs won.

The Kings had some good old players, and some good young players....but fewer guys in their primes. The Habs had a lot of guys in their prime years.

 

[The Panther]

Did anyone REALLY strongly like the Kings going in just because of Gretzky's recent magic in game 7 versus Toronto? With the thought the magic would carry right on through the finals?

I think, at the time, I thought there was a chance, simply because the Kings had some veterans who'd been there before and also because Montreal, while a very strong team, wasn't an overwhelming club by any means. Still, I was 17 then and if you'd asked me who I expected to win, I would probably have said Montreal with about a 60% chance.

Was Roy winning the Conn Smythe for this playoff a pretty clear-cut choice? Or did he have any teammates that in your eyes would've also been an excellent pick?

Once Montreal own that 2nd game in L.A. and led 3-1 (meaning the series was effectively over), there was no doubt what Roy would win the Conn Smythe. If you win 10 playoff overtimes in a row, you're the Conn Smythe winner.

Now, had the Kings won the Cup, it's a different story because Roy wasn't really all that amazing in the Finals, but as long as they won, there was no doubt.

Did a lot of you honestly think after the McSorely illegal stick and the Habs winning game 2, at that moment in time, think Montreal was very likely to win (even with the series being nodded at a game apiece)?

Don't recall what I expected at that point. But I'll say this (and I'm willing to die on this hill): If the Kings had won game two, they'd have won the Stanley Cup.

 

[The Panther]

Just to add, some of Gretzky's very-best hockey as a King was against Vancouver that playoff. He was just superb. On the Gretzky-performance scale, I'd say:

vs. Calgary
8 / 10
vs. Vancouver
10 / 10
vs. Toronto
7 / 10
vs. Montreal
6 / 10

 

[Czech Your Math]

The 93 finals was just a bit before I was truly "into" hockey and old enough to appreciate its nuances. If I could "test-drive" your guys/gals' memories, do you remember what your thoughts were going into the series?

Thought it would be a good series and wondered whether Habs could keep up their incredible one goal/OT records.

Did anyone REALLY strongly like the Kings going in just because of Gretzky's recent magic in game 7 versus Toronto?

With the thought the magic would carry right on through the finals?

Plenty of people liked the Kings with Gretzky, esp. after they had beaten three good teams to get there. Both teams had some magic on their side to reach the finals.

Was Roy winning the Conn Smythe for this playoff a pretty clear-cut choice? Or did he have any teammates that in your eyes would've also been an excellent pick?

Yeah, about as clear cut as it gets.

Did a lot of you honestly think after the McSorely illegal stick and the Habs winning game 2, at that moment in time, think Montreal was very likely to win (even with the series being nodded at a game apiece)?

Wouldn't have favored Habs at that point, but knew they still had a good shot, since they won just about every close game. Wouldn't have guessed they'd win the next three though.

 

[blogofmike]

The Kings felt like they were running out of steam, but high expectations for Gretzky and Roy.

Subterranean expectations for Hrudey who had been benched earlier in the playoff run. Hrudey did okay statistically, but was falling down an awful lot. The OT goal in Game 3 looked like he was trying for what I called a one pad stack, which he did from time to time. Every shot was an adventure.

It was a good close series in spite of being 5 games, much like the Habs sweep of the Flyers in 1976, or for a cross-sport reference, the offense-based Suns loss to the defensively sound Spurs in whatever year Kerr traded for Shaq and the Suns lost an overtime game largely because of an unexpected Duncan three pointer, which was about as rare as a stick measurement penalty.

 

[barbu]

As a habs fan I was very confident going into every series once the habs were past Québec.

The kings also had to play a lot of games compared to the habs. 19 I think and back then I don't think any cup winner had to play so many prior to the finals. In fact I think that was true until 2014.

 

[Lt Dan]

Man that

For me I thought the Kings had a good chance to win simply because Gretzky had turned the clock back and was on fire. Not just because of game 7 against Toronto. Check out the short handed goal with Kurri about 50 seconds into this video. I was worried though as Roy could steal a series and was much better than Hrudy. I do think if the Kings win game 2 they have a good chance to win the series, but that is by no means guaranteed.

On the other side of the coin though I probably underestimated Montreal because I thought they were an average team at best with an exceptional goalie. They played really well together though Muller, Damphousse, Bellows, Desjardins etc.

Man that brought back some memories.... I really thought that '93 was their year

 

[FerrisRox]

My feeling that spring was that once the Canadiens got to the Semi-Finals, they had won the Stanley Cup.

I didn't think any of the remaining teams, the New York Islanders, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Los Angeles Kings had much of a chance to beat them.

The only one out of that trio that I thought could even put up much of a fight was the Los Angeles Kings, primarily because of Gretzky and how hard that team worked top to bottom, but really, the Canadiens were quite a bit better than the other Semi-Finalists.

 

[Jim MacDonald]

Just to add, some of Gretzky's very-best hockey as a King was against Vancouver that playoff. He was just superb. On the Gretzky-performance scale, I'd say:

vs. Calgary
8 / 10
vs. Vancouver
10 / 10
vs. Toronto
7 / 10
vs. Montreal
6 / 10

*big time thumbs up* This makes me want to look up on YouTube and see if there is a "series recap" or even any of the games in their entirety for LA/Vancouver that postseason.

 

[Jim MacDonald]

As a habs fan I was very confident going into every series once the habs were past Québec.

Was this because of Roy's play specifically Barbu? Or did you just sense the whole team was maybe "gelled" and "in the zone," or both perhaps? lol

 

[The Panther]

*big time thumbs up* This makes me want to look up on YouTube and see if there is a "series recap" or even any of the games in their entirety for LA/Vancouver that postseason.

Gretzky really owned Bure in that 6-game series:

Wayne
6G + 7A = 13 PTS (+6)
Pavel
1G + 4A = 5PTS (-2)

Aside from Wayne, nobody on either team was better than a +3.

Almost wonder if Bure wasn't injured or just burned out or something? He sure looked a lot better in the playoffs the following year.

 

[Minar]

For me I thought the Kings had a good chance to win simply because Gretzky had turned the clock back and was on fire. Not just because of game 7 against Toronto. Check out the short handed goal with Kurri about 50 seconds into this video. I was worried though as Roy could steal a series and was much better than Hrudy. I do think if the Kings win game 2 they have a good chance to win the series, but that is by no means guaranteed.

On the other side of the coin though I probably underestimated Montreal because I thought they were an average team at best with an exceptional goalie. They played really well together though Muller, Damphousse, Bellows, Desjardins etc.

That play by Gretzky and Kurri is truly unbelievable.

 

[GMR]

Why do so many people say LA wins if not for the illegal stick?

Didn't they lose 3 in a row after that, including both games at home? I can see Montreal coming back from down 0-2.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i was eleven, so what i thought at the time wasn't exactly an educated opinion.

with that caveat said,

The 93 finals was just a bit before I was truly "into" hockey and old enough to appreciate its nuances. If I could "test-drive" your guys/gals' memories, do you remember what your thoughts were going into the series?

Did anyone REALLY strongly like the Kings going in just because of Gretzky's recent magic in game 7 versus Toronto? With the thought the magic would carry right on through the finals?

i thought LA was going ot win. the context is my canucks had just lost to the kings twice in three years. whatever glaring holes those kings teams had, they certainly didn't seem like holes to me.

this is my earliest memory of cheering for the canucks: in 1991, when we added courtnall, ronning, and momesso at the deadline, and the courtnall/ronning/linden line got crazy hot, we won game one with courtnall getting a hat trick and ronning picking up three points, then gretzky scored game two winner in overtime, we won game three in OT on two ronning goals... and then gretzky became gretzky. two points in a 6-1 game four win, including the eventual game winning 2-1 goal that they never looked back from.

and game five—monster game linden, ronning, lumme, and to a lesser degree courtnall. we went goal for goal with LA: lumme opens the scoring with a shorty on a linden feed, kings answer on the PP (and look at that powerplay, gretzky, robitaille, dave taylor, larry robinson, and young rob blake, with steve duchesne waiting on the bench; it just didn't seem fair), then linden sets up a heroic second chance falling down ronning goal, then gretzky to robitaille to tie it again. LA scores again at the end of the first to take a 3-2 lead into the intermission. vancouver answers back in the second with two PP goals, including linden's third assist. and then four unanswered kings goals, three gretzky assists, 7-4 game.

you can watch the highlights here—



game six was just a formality.

by '93, we were supposed to be the better team. bure scored 60 goals, mclean was the second best goalie in the league that year, nedved broke through and almost scored 40 goals, but gretzky scored two points a game and rookie alexei zhitnik held bure to a single goal. there were three totally winnable games in that series where every time we took a lead, gretzky erased it, and every time we clawed back to tie it, gretzky would score again to put the game away.

all to say, what he'd just done to toronto in games six and seven is exactly what he'd done to us the round before, and i fully expected gretzky to be gretzky in the finals. playing against him just had this feeling of inevitability to it, like he would dangle the possibility that you could beat him and then he would take it away.

also worth noting that mario had won the previous two cups. it really just felt like "the bad guys" couldn't be stopped. yes, all my life i've cheered exclusively against overdogs. i mean what kind of hateful monster cheers for overdogs?

Was Roy winning the Conn Smythe for this playoff a pretty clear-cut choice? Or did he have any teammates that in your eyes would've also been an excellent pick?

i have never in my entire life been more sure of a conn smythe than roy in 1993. watching that run, and montreal was my first favourite team, he.could.not.be.beaten.

but going back to the first question, you have to remember that 1993 patrick roy wasn't patrick roy yet. he was coming off his worst ever regular season and even though he'd just had a ridiculous peak with the vezinas and the 1989 finals run, he hadn't won since he was a rookie. there was no legend of playoff patrick roy yet, there was just the guy who cam neely dominated. and we had seen a number of flash in the pan rookie goalies who got hot in the playoffs: hextall, sean burke, and kinda sorta vanbiesbrouck in his second year. those were all good goalies, but none of them ever looked that good again (as of 1993).

 

[blogofmike]

i have never in my entire life been more sure of a conn smythe than roy in 1993. watching that run, and montreal was my first favourite team, he.could.not.be.beaten.

but going back to the first question, you have to remember that 1993 patrick roy wasn't patrick roy yet. he was coming off his worst ever regular season and even though he'd just had a ridiculous peak with the vezinas and the 1989 finals run, he hadn't won since he was a rookie. there was no legend of playoff patrick roy yet, there was just the guy who cam neely dominated. and we had seen a number of flash in the pan rookie goalies who got hot in the playoffs: hextall, sean burke, and kinda sorta vanbiesbrouck in his second year. those were all good goalies, but none of them ever looked that good again (as of 1993).

I feel like Roy was the guy people would have picked as best goalie in the world after the run starting in 88-89. Tough season but he'd bounced back by the playoffs, had a .929 playoff save percentage at a time when that was unheard of (Ranford was legendary in 1990 with a .912 and records only went back to the early 80s), and he had won 12 of the last 13 games.

Also the other guy was Kelly Hrudey...

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Why do so many people say LA wins if not for the illegal stick?

Didn't they lose 3 in a row after that, including both games at home? I can see Montreal coming back from down 0-2.

just momentum really

Hrudy noted that the atmosphere back in LA for the first Cup finals games ever played there was great, but the Kings came out completely flat and he didnt know why

In a previous thread regarding short layovers between the conference finals and the start of the finals it was noted that the Kings had a very short rest between game 7 against the Leafs and game 1 in Montreal, which may have contributed to their eventual collapse

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I feel like Roy was the guy people would have picked as best goalie in the world after the run starting in 88-89. Tough season but he'd bounced back by the playoffs, had a .929 playoff save percentage at a time when that was unheard of (Ranford was legendary in 1990 with a .912 and records only went back to the early 80s), and he had won 12 of the last 13 games.

Also the other guy was Kelly Hrudey...

i was just a kid but what i remember hearing on tv and the radio, and the dads talking at hockey practice, is the league "figured" roy out. i definitely feel like there was the perception (maybe among casuals, but still) that the '89 and '90 roy who ran away with the vezina wasn't the same roy that stumbled into a vezina second place basically by default in '91 and wasn't on the map in '93. after the first two games of the quebec series, "roy is over" was very much a thing i was hearing.

i think partially it was because "you just have to shoot high on roy" was a thing that was repeated so much in the late 80s that it was stuck in a lot of people's heads forever, and, paradoxically, i think it was also partially because we had this new butterfly goalie felix potvin walk into the league and hit the ground running and people were talking about thibault like he was the next generational goalie and it just felt like we were getting newer better roys.

all that sounds silly now, of course.

and even if objectively roy was the best goalie in the league if you took everything into consideration, belfour had had the most individual success the previous three years (vezina, finals, vezina), barrasso had the most team success (the last two cups and that season's presidents trophy), and ranford might have had the reputation as the best money goalie (smythe, then canada cup).

my point really is just that in retrospect i would never bet against 1993 roy. but even though he was literally my favourite player in the world, i did honestly think LA would have won.

 

[The Macho King]

Still blows my mind that of all people Marty f***ing McSorley was the guy with a banana blade.

 

[reckoning]

Without the McSorley penalty, Montreal wins in 6 instead of 5.
When you watch Game 5 today, the Kings look very tired, and Hrudey making some key saves is the only reason it's not a blowout early.

Going into the series all logic pointed to Montreal winning, but nobody wanted to bet against Gretzky.

One thing that oddly sticks in my memory about that playoff run was how Anthony Robbins was the latest self-help guru who was becoming popular in the mainstream, and Kings coach Barry Melrose talked openly about how he was avid fan of Robbins, and how he applied the lessons from his books into his coaching. Didn't last for long though.

 

[Jim MacDonald]

i mean what kind of hateful monster cheers for overdogs?

 

[barbu]

Was this because of Roy's play specifically Barbu? Or did you just sense the whole team was maybe "gelled" and "in the zone," or both perhaps? lol

The short story is that even without taking Roy into account, I felt that the habs had a better roster than Buffalo, NYI and LA. Roy's heroics and the 11 OT wins are stuff of legends, but they did go 16-2 after dropping the first 2 games against Québec.

Buffalo was very top heavy that year and they gave up a lot of depth and balance in the previous years in the Hawerchuk, Lafontaine and Fuhr trades. NYI was an interesting team, but they were without their top scorer (Turgeon). They did beat Pittsburgh but they clearly were out of voodoo after that.

As for LA they obviously had quite a bit of talent but they struggled mightily in the 2nd half of the season, aftger a torrid start. I felt they were the lesser team in every single of the their previous matchups. They came through but they had to be banged up after playing so many games and traveling so much.

 

[The Panther]

No, I think L.A. wins if not for the McSorley penalty. You cannot over-estimate momentum shifts in hockey (esp. in that "emotion-over-systems" era). It's only come out in recent years -- from Robitaille and others -- just how distraught the Kings' locker-room was after that penalty. Gretzky was apparently reaming out McSorley in front of everyone, and after that incident everyone was on egg shells. Then, they lost the game. The Kings were completely flat to start game three, basically spotting Montreal three goals. They then came back to tie... and lost in overtime. Same script in game four.

I would think differently about this if Montreal had consistently been the better team in this series -- but they weren't. Only in game five, when it was all over but the cryin', was Montreal clearly stronger. I would say in all of games one through four, L.A. was the stronger team, and they didn't lose any of the games in regulation.

So, then, go back and give L.A. game two. Now, there's no club on egg shells, no drama, and Gretzky is just 2 wins away from completing his "L.A. mission", with three of the next four games at home.

Context aside, how many teams in the Finals have won the first two games on the road and then lost the series? Maybe none?

 

[double5son10]

As a Canadiens fan, I was hoping for Toronto actually. Figured the Leafs were gassed with three straight seven game series, and they certainly looked it in that decisive game in MLG. Kings had Gretzky, and that was the X factor I didn't want to face.