Why 2014 Cup Final loss ‘devastating’ for Rangers legend, not Dominic Moore
Dominic Moore doesn’t remember much about the New York Rangers’ overnight charter flight home from Los Angeles hours after they lost Game 5 of the 2014 Stanley Cup Final in double overtime to the Kings.
He does recall sitting next to Henrik Lundqvist. Friends from New York’s 2000 draft class, Moore and Lundqvist sat together on team charter flights throughout that 2013-14 season, and did so on their final trip home following Alec Martinez’s double-OT goal ended their memorable postseason run.
“We did sit together, but I don’t remember any details from that flight,” Moore told Forever Blueshirts on the Rink Rap podcast.
That doesn’t mean he was unaware of his surroundings. The Rangers were stunned and devastated to come so close to winning their first Stanley Cup championship in 20 years. The pain was palpable even hours after losing the Final, their third overtime defeat in the series.
Lundqvist, heroic making 48 saves before Martinez buried a rebound to break the Rangers’ collective heart, was particularly crestfallen. New York’s backbone, he started all 25 games that spring, posting a 2.14 goals-against average and .925 save percentage. Without him, there was no memorable playoff run.
Moore understood his friend’s pain.
“I think it’s particularly tough for him knowing that it was always going to be the knock on him to be the greatest goalie not to have won a Stanley Cup,” Moore explained. “I think the competitor that he was felt like ‘Ok, that was my chance, and we didn’t pull it of.’ Were we going to get another chance or not? You don’t know. So, I think that was truly devastating for him.”
As it turned out, Lundqvist never played in another Stanley Cup Final, and that 2014 run remains the Rangers last trip to the Final since winning it all in 1994. The Blueshirts did win the Presidents’ Trophy in 2014-15, but lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final on home ice to the Tampa Bay Lightning later that spring.
Lundqvist retired in 2020, and landed in the Hockey Hall of Fame three years later. His 459 wins are sixth all-time in NHL history. But 2014 turned out to be his only Stanley Cup Final appearance, a bittersweet not to an illustrious career.
Dominic Moore had ‘different perspective’ after Rangers lost 2014 Stanley Cup Final
Moore played two more seasons with the Rangers, and then another two in the League before he retired following the 2017-18 season. He played 897 regular-season games and another 101 in the playoffs. Like Lundqvist, Moore never won the Stanley Cup and appeared in just one Final.
But Moore’s perspective after that series loss was different from those of Lundqvist and the rest of their teammates. That’s because his wife Katie died from liver cancer at the age of 31 in January of 2013. Moore didn’t play in 2012-13, choosing to care for his wife, who’s specific form of cancer had no clear treatment options.
Moore returned to the NHL with the Rangers in 2013-14 and won the Masterton Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
“For me, as Rangers fans know, that year personally I had been through a lot. So, I think that the loss wasn’t as hard for me just because I had a different perspective on things,” Moore explained. “I was just truly grateful for the opportunity to play in these incredible moments, and have these incredible moments, and share them with my teammates, leave it all out there. Honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, so I think in that respect we were probably a little bit different.”
Those “incredible moments” included Moore scoring the series-deciding goal in Game 6 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Final, the only goal in a 1-0 victory which lifted the Rangers into the Stanley Cup Final.
“So, to get that goal, when it went in, that tension was just unleashed, and as the goal scorer, it just went right through me,” Moore shared. “I remember turning around and just having this view of the whole side of the arena just going bananas, and I just felt like one with the whole building. Truly unique, special experience.”
Moore helped create the Katie Moore Foundation to help those with rare forms of cancer. He married Mary Hirst in 2015 and currently is the a part of the Utah Mammoth broadcast team.
