It is definitely 1993 for me.
At least winning game 7 at home against a pesky team missing their best player for the entire series would've guaranteed a conference series against Patrick Roy's Canadiens, the eventual champions. We're talking crisp HNIC footage against the likes of Roy, Damphousse, Leclair, Desjardins, Carbonneau. Lemieux carrying threepeat expectations into Montreal. And if they win that series, they play Wayne Gretzky/Barry Melrose in the Finals.
The 1993 team was cool. Celebrity status as repeat champions. Lemieux writes his most amazing chapter. Rick Tocchet and Kevin Stevens. Ron Francis, nice and neat 100 points. Jagr clears 90 points. Cup vets are still around, but Shawn McEachern breaks through as a young bluechip center, and Marty Straka flashes over half a season. Barrasso was the Vezina runner-up. Won a still standing record of 17 games to finish the regular season. They won their only President's Trophy. Lemieux wins every individual award possible. Nothing
could go wrong.
To lose that series to that team in that time is a real tragedy. That season is like my hockey field of dreams. Just want them to play it over. One more win and I think hockey justice is served even if they lose to Montreal. Potentially, they go down as one of the greatest teams of all time. It really sucked. And because of that loss I can't ever claim '96 was ever as painful. I had no real hope against the Avs. They started to beat the Pens a lot as the Nordiques, then added Patrick Roy further up in their trajectory.