June 14, 1994: 32 years later, it’s still the greatest day in Rangers history
Author’s note: New York is going crazy after the Knicks won their first championship in 53 years by defeating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 on Saturday night in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. It’s the same feeling that pervaded the Big Apple on the night of June 14, 1994, when the Rangers defeated the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to win their first NHL title since 1940.
Senior writer John Kreiser was among the media throng at Madison Square Garden that evening, and it’s an evening he’ll remember forever. He’s talked to many of the heroes of that night over the years and shares some memories of arguably the greatest night in the Rangers’ first 100 seasons.
One thing that I’ll never forget is the nervousness of the fans as they made their way into the Garden. The crowd that came for Game 5 was ready to party – the Rangers had swept two games in Vancouver to take a 3-1 lead in the series and everyone was set to celebrate after polishing off the Canucks. Instead, the visitors left with a 6-3 win, scoring three straight goals after blowing a 3-0 lead. Game 6 was an easy 4-1 win by the Canucks on a Saturday night in Vancouver against a visibly weary Rangers team.
That sent everyone back to New York for the 10th Game 7 in the history of the Stanley Cup Final – and the first since the Edmonton Oilers topped the Philadelphia Flyers in 1987.
In talking to general manager Neil Smith years later, one thing that stuck with me was that he emphasized the fact that there were two days off between Games 6 and 7. The loss in Vancouver was their third game in five days with two coast-to-coast flights in between.
The Rangers weren’t a terribly young team, and he told me the extra day of rest meant a lot for players like Mark Messier (33 years old), Kevin Lowe (34) and Craig MacTavish (35). In addition, Jay Wells was also 34, Glenn Anderson and Doug Lidster were 33, and Steve Larmer and Greg Gilbert were 32. That’s eight of 18 skaters who were on the back nine of their careers.
Smith had the Rangers stay over in Vancouver after the Game 6 loss and fly home on Sunday afternoon.
“We were an older team,” he said, “and that got the players more rest.”
First period: Rangers get the jump on Canucks
The second Tuesday in June 1994 was a beautiful day – sunny and not too warm. The fans knew it was a day they’d always remember; the question was what their memories would be.
But the nerves in the sellout crowd of 18,200 disappeared when the Rangers stepped onto the ice for warmups – replaced by bedlam. This was the closest the Blueshirts had come to winning the Cup since they lost Game 7 of the 1950 Final to the Detroit Red Wings in double overtime. The Rangers weren’t expected to win that series, but they were expected to win this one after capturing the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL regular-season champion for the second time in three seasons.
The chants of “We want the Cup” rocked the Garden well before John Amirante came out to sing the Canadian and U.S. national anthems. Not that anyone could hear him; the noise level was incredible.
Backup goaltender Glenn Healy told me that the noise was a big reason the Rangers jumped out to a two-goal lead before the 15-minute mark.
“You couldn’t hear him sing,” Healy said of Amirante’s performance. “That’s how loud it was, and it led to a two-goal lead.”
The crowd kept rocking as the rested Rangers dominated play through the first half of the opening period. But they couldn’t beat Kirk McLean until 11:02, when the Blueshirts’ stars stepped up.
Messier curled into the Vancouver zone and slipped the puck to Sergei Zubov in the middle of the Vancouver zone. He drew the defense to him and fed a wide-open Brian Leetch in the left circle. Leetch controlled the puck before hitting the half-empty net – setting off an even louder eruption.
The Rangers got the game’s first power play when Canucks defenseman Jyrki Lumme was sent off for cross-checking at 14:03 and needed less than 45 seconds to capitalize. Adam Graves, who set a team record with 52 regular-season goals but hadn’t scored in his previous 10 games, took Alexei Kovalev’s pass in the slot and whipped the puck past McLean at 14:45 for a 2-0 lead.
It stayed that way until the period ended, and the crowd nearly blew the roof off the Garden as the Blueshirts skated off.
Second period: Rangers close in on the Cup
Smith said the two-goal lead took a lot of the tension away.
“We got up on them when Leetch scored, then ‘Gravy’ got one on the short side and we were up 2-0 after one period,” he told me. “I felt really good then, because we were pretty good when we were playing with a two-goal lead.”
The Rangers got another power-play chance when Jeff Brown was called for interference at 4:38 of the second period. But it was the Canucks who scored; Trevor Linden went in on a short-handed breakaway during a delayed penalty call and beat Mike Richter at 5:21 to cut the Rangers’ lead to 2-1.
The Blueshirts atoned for that one after Vancouver defenseman Dave Babych was sent off for tripping at 12:36. The Rangers swarmed the Canucks and made it 3-1 at 13:29 when Messier was credited with nudging the puck into the net off a wild scramble.
The crowd roared for the rest of the period as the Rangers killed off a penalty to Messier and skated off the ice with a two-goal lead and just 20 minutes separating them from history.
Third period: Rangers hang on for the Cup
But the Canucks wouldn’t go quietly. Linden’s power-play goal 4:50 into the third period cut the lead to 3-2 and set up the longest 15:10 in Garden history.
In talking to members of the 1994 team over the years, the one common memory was that they felt like the last 15 minutes was more like 15 years.
Defenseman Doug Lidster, who was playing against the team he’d spent most of his career with, said he didn’t watch the game for years. When he did sit down and watch, “the last 15 minutes did last forever.”
It was even tougher for fellow defenseman Jeff Beukeboom, who injured his knee in the second period and could only watch as his teammates tried to hang on.
“It was especially tough for me because I was injured and couldn’t play,” he said. “It was very tense. But as a team, you prepare for any situation – and we were prepared for it. Everyone stepped up and did his job, especially the goalie.”
It wasn’t any easier for Smith.
“The last 15 minutes seemed like 15 years,” he said. “It was great hockey. It was crazy. You’re literally just hanging on. But it was great for the fans. If you’re looking for sports to give you thrills and chills and drive your adrenaline, nothing could drive your adrenaline like that game.”
The 18,200 fans at MSG were on pins and needles the rest of the way as they watched Richter play the most important period of his career. He robbed Pavel Bure and Nathan Lafayette midway through the period and kept the Canucks off the board as time counted down. Richter got some help from a goaltender’s best friend as the clock neared the 3:00 mark – Lafayette’s shot beat him but hit the post and stayed out as the packed house roared with relief.
The clock crept inside 1:00 with the Canucks pulling McLean for an extra skater. Messier won two face-offs, but the Canucks kept the Rangers from clearing the zone until Larmer sent it sliding down ice into the Vancouver end. The crowd went berserk, the Rangers were celebrating – but linesman Kevin Collins spoiled the party by blowing his whistle for icing.
Years later, Smith, like his players, the fans – and even the Canucks – couldn’t believe that Collins called icing.
“If you watch the replays, Bure gave up on it,” he said. “We dump it down and he goes after it and just quits, but they he looks at Collins and just goes and gets it.
“I know Brian [Leetch] had already thrown his stick in the air, and then the whistle blew. People were in pandemonium; they were just sick to their stomachs.”
Said Leetch: “Steve Larmer had dumped the puck down the ice and I started to celebrate – I jumped on Mike [Richter] and gave him a hug. And then they called icing and put some time back on the clock.”
That was 1.8 seconds, to be exact, after the officials and timekeepers got together. But Smith said he wasn’t worried as he watched Craig MacTavish line up against Bure in the circle to the right of Richter.
“I wasn’t nervous, and I’ll tell you why,” he said. “First of all, I know enough that goals aren’t scored like that. The guys who were out there weren’t going to let them score, no matter what. I had to call my wife down, my family down. I was saying, ‘They never score like that.’ ‘MacT’ took the face-off, but ‘Mess’ came in and cross-checked Linden or [Murray] Craven.”
Healy was also confident.
“Everybody knew it was ‘Hudson Bay rules’—the only way someone would have scored; they’d have gotten the puck in the net but they’d be picking their teeth off the ice,” he said. “There was no chance that was going to be a clean play. MacT did what he did best. That’s why we went out and got him (in a trade deadline deal with the Oilers)—to win that draw. He was as dependable as you could ever get.”
MacTavish simplified matters by winning the draw. The clock hit :00.0 to close out a 3-2 win, settling off the loudest eruption the Garden had ever heard.
Rangers savor first championship in 54 years
Like most of the fans who were celebrating, Richter said the feeling was almost unreal.
“It seemed like the moment was suspended in time,” he said of hearing the final buzzer and realizing that the Rangers were Stanley Cup champions. “To realize that we had won, how hard we had worked, and that it had all come true. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
For once in his life, Smith said, he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“I was down behind the bench with my family — and it’s funny, you don’t know how to act. You’re wondering, ‘Do I go down on the bench? Do I go out on the ice? What do I do?’ I was the one who orchestrated where all the police would go and how we would take care of all the other issues – all those meetings. But me, myself, I didn’t know how to act. The whole thing was surreal at that point.”
It was the fourth championship in Rangers history, but the first in 54 years – and the first they’d won at the Garden. The noise level as the Cup was brought out onto the ice and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke the words that sent the Blueshirts Faithful into delirium: “Captain Mark Messier, come and get the Stanley Cup” was unreal. “Euphoria” only begins to describe the celebration; there has been nothing like it at the Garden before or since.
Generations of Rangers fans (including me, who had been there when the Boston Bruins skated around the Garden ice with the Cup in 1972) had just seen something many of them thought they’d never witness in their lifetime. The chant of “1940” that had haunted the franchise for decades was done, replaced by “1994.”
“The greatest thing was that you could see a Rod Gilbert jersey, and beside him there would be a Ron Duguay jersey, and beside him there would be a Brian Leetch jersey,” Healy said. “You’ve got grandfathers, fathers, sons—they all cheer for different heroes; they cheer for the crest on the front of the sweater, but all of them celebrating together at the same time. That was special.”
Chaos–the good kind–erupted on the streets around the Garden. Fans celebrated into the night, chanting “1994” over and over. The city that never sleeps had plenty of reasons to stay awake.
Most of the media interviews were handled in the Rotunda to accommodate the swarms of writers and broadcasters on hand. But I eventually crossed the now-empty ice and got to the locker room, where the celebration was still going on. To see the looks on the faces of the players, coaches, team personnel, families and alumni all celebrating was a sight that was almost impossible to put into words.
“It was really so surreal,” Smith said. “It flashed by so quickly, like the birth of a child. It happens so quickly, and you’d like to re-live it, but of course, you can’t.”
Unfortunately for Rangers fans of this era, they’ve never had that opportunity since.
