Rangers honoring ‘94 title team tonight at MSG
“And this one will last a lifetime!”
Sam Rosen’s iconic call from Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final has, whether he intended it to be that way or not, held true for the past 25 years.
The Rangers’ first championship in 54 years ended the “curse” of 1940, but has perhaps started a new one. The franchise has reached the Cup Final only once since then, a 2014 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, and is currently undergoing a “rebuild” after a series of deals at last year’s trade deadline seemed to signal the window for a title to have officially closed for the time being.
On Friday night, however, the franchise will honor the most recent group to bring the Cup back to Manhattan when the 1994 team will be reunited for a special celebration prior to an 8 p.m. game against the Carolina Hurricanes at Madison Square Garden.
General manager Neil Smith, coaches Mike Keenan, Colin Campbell and Dick Todd as well as players Doug Lidster, Esa Tikkanen, Eddie Olczyk, Sergei Nemchinov, Craig MacTavish, Mike Hudson, Brian Noonan, Greg Gilbert, Mike Hartman, Nick Kypreos, Sergei Zubov, Jeff Beukeboom, Jay Wells, Joey Kocur, Alexei Kovalev, Glenn Healy, Stephane Matteau, Mike Richter, Glenn Anderson, Brian Leetch, Kevin Lowe, Adam Graves, Steve Larmer and Mark Messier are all expected to be in attendance.
Only Alexander Karpovtsev, who was tragically killed in the 2011 KHL Lokomotiv team plane crash, will, sadly, be missing from the event.
“I think we’re all looking forward to getting together again, because obviously it doesn’t happen very often,” Graves told The Trentonian in a lengthy phone interview.
“We’ve had different guys together with the 20th anniversary and then at Mess’ jersey retirement, and you run into different people at different times with alumni golf tournaments. … There’s people in different states and countries, and that’s the difficult part, but if you asked everyone, they would say that’s the most exciting part, is to get back together and certainly to be back at Madison Square Garden together. And having the spirit of ‘Potsy’ with us as well.”
Graves was the heart and soul of that Rangers team, putting up career highs in goals (52) and points (79) while adding another 10 goals and seven assists over the team’s incredible playoff run that saw them blow through the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals before enduring a grueling seven-game Eastern Conference Final series against the New Jersey Devils that needed overtime to decide. Stephane Matteau’s goal at 4:24 of double OT sent the MSG faithful into a frenzy.
It also, for many teams, would have been so emotionally draining and physically taxing that another seven-game series for the Cup against a loaded Vancouver Canucks team would have simply been too tall of a task.
“When you’re in, you don’t think about it a lot, you’re just so focused on the now,” Graves recalled.
“But I think when you look at that series and look at the success the Devils had with that core and one of the great defenses of all-time – a great team from the net out, Martin Brodeur is one of the great goaltenders of all-time and that defense unit is one of the best of all-time – that series in particular, when you were on the ice, you were battling for every square inch. That was as physical and as tough of a series as you’re going to find in hockey, and I think if you ask hockey purists, they’d say it was one of the best series ever. To be able to be a part of it, you don’t really think about anything other than the next game, the next shift.
“The only difference between those two teams that year were the six games we played against each other in the regular season, or else they would have been first overall in the league. But, you also knew that going into the final and going against Vancouver, they were a team that made a couple trades late in the season and they were on a roll. When you go back and look at their lineup, you go, ‘Wow, that was a good hockey club.’ They didn’t have the early regular season they were hoping for, but the second half and then into the playoffs, their game came together and they took off and were an outstanding hockey club. So, it didn’t get any easier, and Vancouver played a similar system to what we did whereas when we played the Devils, they had that trap and were so difficult to penetrate, and if you did then you had to beat Marty.”
While that year’s Rangers team provided a bevy of iconic postseason moments – Richter’s penalty shot save in Game 4 of the Cup Final on superstar Pavel Bure, one that was eerily similar to a stop he made in that year’s All-Star Game, certainly among them – the one that seems to have “lasted a lifetime” is Messier’s legendary “guarantee” that the Blueshirts would win Game 6 against the Devils despite being down 3-2 in the series.
Messier delivered a third-period hat trick to deliver on his promise. The rest is history.
“You talk about Mark and his ability to take his game to a completely different level when you need him,” Graves said. “We’re not playing in a Game 7 if Mark doesn’t play the way he did (in Game 6), as well as Alex Kovalev.”
“Mark always had such great instincts for the game and what was needed, and I was fortunate enough to play with Edmonton and played the best game I ever saw a single player play, and that was Game 4 of the Conference Finals against Chicago in 1990. He dominated in every part of the game. … I’ve never seen a player dominate a game like that before or since. So, to play against the Devils when you needed him the most, I think he felt like our team just needed a boost of confidence. There’s only one Mark Messier. And then, to deliver on it with three goals … you’d have to ask Mark to speak to (why he did it) but he was always about the confidence of the team and doing everything together. He had such a deep understanding of what it took to win – he’d won five Stanley Cups – and was such an integral part of winning Conn Smythe, Hart trophies and everything else and he felt at that particular time that we needed that confidence going into New Jersey because they were a heck of a team. But only Mark can deliver like that. A hat trick after guaranteeing the game? That’ll be talked about for decades to come.”