“My second year with the Devils, I was trying to start fresh. I was. For me, going to the rink every day, practicing with the guys, playing, that was an escape for me. Gradually, it got better with time for me and my family. As the year progressed, I started to move on ever so slowly. But it was tough. It was a struggle at times. It’s something that was always there.”
—Bernie Nicholls, New Jersey Devils (1993–94)
Jack Nicholls was born in Edmonton, Alberta, on November 25, 1992. The third child of Bernie and Heather Nicholls, Jack was premature, arrived by way of Cesarean section, and changed the family’s outlook on life immediately. Jack, who weighed just three and a half pounds at birth, had Down’s syndrome, a condition that is created by the existence of an extra chromosome and affects about 2 percent of the world’s population.
But the profession of hockey can be a difficult one at times, cruel even, as competition and business can often get in the way of real life during what is a marathon of a regular season.
Such was life for Bernie, a marketable, super-skilled superstar forward, who was playing for the Oilers at the time. And just as a strong dose of life and reality hit, along came the rebuilding New Jersey Devils some two months later, and they needed Bernie’s scoring touch and flair for the dramatic. The Devils acquired Nicholls, who had eight goals and 40 points in 46 games for Edmonton that season, on January 13, 1993, for forwards Zdeno Ciger and Kevin Todd.
As if moving to a new state wasn’t disruptive enough, the trade meant Nicholls had to switch conferences, move to a new country across a couple of time zones, and adapt to new team that was some 2,500 miles away from his previous one.
Jack was nearly two months old when Bernie boarded a plane for Newark, New Jersey, to join his new team. And as difficult as it was going to be, the Nicholls family was just going to have to make it work somehow.
Without much reason to stay in Western Canada, Heather, Jack, and his twin siblings, Flynn and McKenna, did not remain in Edmonton. They returned to Heather’s parents’ home outside Los Angeles, where Bernie had started his NHL career with the Kings in 1981. But a little more than a week after becoming a Devil, Bernie received more bad news. On January 21, after a practice with his new teammates, Bernie discovered that Jack had developed meningitis, a bacterial infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Meningitis infections—even if treated in some cases—can often quickly result in death or brain damage, especially in children.
“The Devils were just great about the whole situation. I will never forget that,” Nicholls said. “They put me on a plane and told me to go take care of my family. That was all Lou [Lamoriello]. I will never forget that.”
Nicholls returned home, spoke with the doctors who were treating Jack, and spent some time with his family. When things appeared to have calmed down a bit, Nicholls traveled back to New Jersey. Not long after, he had to return to California.
“To have to go back and forth like that, the Devils could have acted differently, but they didn’t. It was all class from them,” Nicholls said. “They never held it against me, and Lou covered the flights and everything. I couldn’t have been more appreciative.”
Eventually, Nicholls settled in with the Devils and coach Herb Brooks, a committed family man himself. With his loved ones across country and in a dire situation, it was admittedly tough for Nicholls to focus on hockey. Being on a new team with new aspirations in a new conference helped.
“Herbie was amazing. He had big plans, and wanted me there, but knew what was most important,” Nicholls said. “They wanted me to be with my family. They did everything they could for us.”
Back and forth, Nicholls would go. New Jersey. California. New Jersey. California. Surely, the miles weren’t a good thing for his 31-year-old body, but he still managed to play 23 games that season in a Devils uniform. He finished with five goals and 20 points in New Jersey and was a plus-3.
“Family is a very important thing to the Devils,” Lamoriello said. “We are all family.”
The Devils, back in the old playoff format where the seedings went Nos. 1–4 in each division rather than 1–8 in the conference, finished as a No. 4 seed that year, and lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in five games in Round 1. Outclassed by a Pittsburgh team that was the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion, it was hardly a banner New Jersey postseason run. Nicholls had no points in the five games, and finished as a minus-5.
That summer, Brooks was relieved of his duties, Jacques Lemaire and Larry Robinson came in, the Devils changed their philosophy, and the transformation officially began. Still with an unstable situation at home, Nicholls was expected to be a big part of that culture change. Lamoriello and Lemaire needed him. The Devils needed him.
And he needed them.
“I can’t say it enough. Lou was just amazing,” Nicholls said. “He treated me like I was his son.”
On November 21, 1993, the Nicholls family lost Jack on an early Saturday morning in Long Beach, California. Bernie, again with the Devils’ permission, left the team two days beforehand. The long road had ended just four days before Jack was to have his first birthday.
“To think back on it now, it is difficult. But when he died, I had reached a point where I knew that I could move on from there. I knew that everyone would want me to continue on,” Nicholls said. “The first year with the Devils, absolutely, it was a huge struggle. But the second year, I knew it would eventually get better.”
It did, in so many ways. As the wins began to pile up and the expectations began to rise in New Jersey, playing hockey was fun again for Nicholls. He was inspired. He was motivated. And with a new perspective on life, he cherished every moment he had out there. As his world continued to change, his teammates, many of whom were starting families of their own, truly bonded with him.
Nicholls was not your typical Devil when he arrived in New Jersey. He had played, after all, with the Kings, the Rangers, and the Oilers, much flashier teams that allowed their players a few more liberties. For example, Lamoriello required Devils players to wear suits and ties. That was new terrain for Nicholls, and one day, he simply forgot.
“I fined him,” Lamoriello said with a laugh. “It was procedure. It was what we did. But it was funny, too, because you knew Bernie wasn’t trying to go against the team. He just wasn’t used to it! He paid it and we moved on. We had a laugh over it. There were never any problems.”
The same can be said of his performance on the ice. It would have been easy for a career goal scorer to shake his head at the Devils’ defensive ways. But that never happened with Nicholls.
“When you think of Bernie Nicholls, you think of a guy who is scoring a lot of goals, a lot of fanfare, the whole nine yards, and even Bernie bought into what we were doing,” Bruce Driver said. “When I think of Bernie Nicholls playing for the Devils, I think of goals and the offense, but he’d get in there and block shots all the time. It was unbelievable. And he was great on the penalty kill, too. Bernie was tremendous at sacrificing his body, and I never knew that after all those years of playing against him. He was a penalty-killing, shot-blocking machine!
“It was all those little things that players were doing, and it really added up. As we were going through the playoffs, it really didn’t matter who we were playing. We had total confidence in our ability. Bernie was a huge part of that.”
Traveling back and forth across the country to be with his family, Nicholls only played in 61 regular season games that season, but his totals were solid. On a team that finished second overall in offense and battled the Rangers all season long for the No. 1 postseason seed, Nicholls had 19 goals, 46 points, and was an impressive plus-24.
“I think Jacques was misunderstood at times,” Nicholls said. “On defense, yes, he was strict. He would never let our defense pinch. He was real strict about that. But for offense, he was awesome. As a center, the first out was me, and he allowed us to be creative. In the offensive zone, in the attack, it was great. Were the reins on the defense? Sure. And it worked, and they never got caught, and they were the reason we were winning so easily. But the thing to remember was Jacques was skilled offensively as a player himself. I think he was amazing. He allowed us to do so much offensively. It was so much fun.”
Which is exactly what Nicholls needed.
After a poor decision to cross-check Alexei Kovalev in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, and then after sitting out the Devils’ impressive 3–1 win in Game 4 while on suspension, Nicholls was back and ready to go in Game 5. Back at Madison Square Garden, with a chance to put the win-it-now-or-else Rangers on the brink of elimination, Nicholls and the Devils were primed for production as the puck dropped on May 23, 1994.
Nicholls’ return to the lineup was just one of many storylines as play began in the first period. Mark Messier and Brian Leetch, who Mike Keenan claimed were mysteriously injured after Game 4, started this tilt at home, causing many to wonder if they were even injured at all. With Keenan’s history of mind games, who knew what to believe? Craig MacTavish, another one of the “injured” Rangers, was also out there, so perhaps it was all one, big Keenan smoke screen. Either way, Leetch’s playing time was something to monitor on this night, when the Rangers desperately needed to avoid falling into a 2–3 hole.
Suspension or not, the Rangers still weren’t happy with Nicholls’ antics, and it did not take them long to make that known. Three minutes in, the Rangers played the intimidator card, as Esa Tikkanen sprayed Martin Brodeur with some ice while the goaltender held on for a whistle. In the same sequence, Adam Graves elbowed Nicholls, much to the delight of the Garden crowd.
But the home-team satisfaction would not last long. And you wouldn’t believe who delivered the first dose of bad news.
After Tommy Albelin slashed MacTavish at 5:05, the Rangers built some momentum on the power play, but it was short-lived. On the penalty kill, Scott Stevens stood up Messier at the blue line, almost leaving his skates to do it, which would have been another minor. Instead, it was a no-call, and the short-handed Devils went to work. Brodeur’s clearing attempt—remember, though still a rookie, he was easily one of the best goaltenders in the league handling the puck—efficiently hit the glass, avoided the reach of Leetch, and sailed out of the zone. Perfect positioning. From there, the Devils’ transition game—so strong in Game 4—resurfaced.
A charging Claude Lemieux blew right past Leetch. He took the puck, streaked through the neutral zone, and raced in on a 2-on-1 with Nicholls. Lemieux avoided Sergei Zubov and unleashed one of his patented 20-foot slap shots from the right point, which Mike Richter kicked out. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was destiny, maybe it was just the Devils’ precise positional play. Whatever it was, Richter’s rebound landed right on the stick of Nicholls, who buried it into the open net as Richter scrambled to get back.
Nicholls’ first of the series, and third of the postseason, came on a penalty kill at 6:49 and silenced the crowd. It was the Devils’ first shorthanded tally of the playoffs, and with an assist, Brodeur registered his first-ever postseason point.
The Rangers did not respond well to the goal. After a Game 4 in which Keenan deemed the team’s effort “unacceptable,” it appeared as if nothing had changed, with the exception of Leetch’s playing time. The defenseman was taking a regular turn in Game 5, after compiling just 13:04 of time on the ice in Game 4.
New York created some chances as the first-period clock ticked down, but Brodeur was sharp throughout. With 5:06 left, he had stopped all 10 Rangers shots. By the end of the period, the total was at 13, New York was searching for answers, and there was an uneasy feeling throughout the Garden, a feeling that the faithful had felt before—oh, once or twice—in the previous 54 years.
“Being a Rangers fan, I’m always pessimistic,” Joe Benigno said. “And I definitely felt that way with Game 5. The Devils were so good at that point, and Brodeur was starting to show you just who he was. Didn’t look good.”
And it took a turn for the ugly in the second.
In light of Nicholls’ suspension, there was talk of retribution, of revenge, of getting one back for the home team during the walkup to the game. Well, the Rangers did not stop with Graves’ dump of Nicholls in the first. In the second, it was Jeff Beukeboom’s turn. And he decided to target someone else. Stephane Richer broke in off the left wing, and his wrist shot was stopped by Richter. As he turned toward the right boards, Beukeboom rubbed him out and left him flat on the ice, face down.
The crowd loved the hit, but it was clear Richer was hurting. The New Jersey trainers rushed out, as Richer was down for four minutes. While Nicholls complained to the officials, Richer finally got to his feet, a bit woozy still, and was helped off the ice with a clear bruise under his left eye.
“That one could have been costly,” Devils radio voice Mike Miller said. “Stephane Richer, the guy may be one of the most talented players I ever saw. He may have never lived up to his potential, but this guy was a force, and he was having a great series.”
In a tit-for-tat series that was shaping up to be a great one for the future of the league, it seemed like this hit might draw the same kind of suspension that Nicholls’ did, though that still had to be determined. In the interim, like the Nicholls play, there was no penalty called.
Play carried on without Richer, and as the focus moved away from how much playing time the Rangers’ stars were getting—Leetch played nine shifts in the first period for a total of 7:34, and Messier also had nine for 6:35—the crowd seemed more interested in booing anyone who was on the ice in red, white, and blue, rather than worrying about who was actually on the ice.
“We were what you’d call a road team,” Driver said. “That’s the way we played. We were never going to be a flashy team. We were just going to go out and do what was needed to give us the best possible chance to win.”
Mission accomplished. In fact, as Ken Daneyko and Viacheslav Fetisov touched up on respective icing calls at 12:58 and 12:28 respectively, the boos had never been louder in Manhattan.
“After Game 4, it all took a turn,” Leetch said. “That was one of their best games, and they were carrying it over at the Garden. I remember just thinking, We’re really in for something now. And the doubts started to creep into our heads a little bit.”
Play then took a turn for the sluggish on some poor ice on this warm day, with temperatures in the 70s in New York. That was a traditional stumbling block throughout the NHL at this time of year, as the weather warmed in many of the league’s postseason cities. This year was no different. Plus, the NBA’s Knicks, who were orchestrating their own run for the ages, defeated the Chicago Bulls 87–77 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals the night before at the Garden. That didn’t help the condition of the ice.
In the end, the period amounted to a penalty fest.
“Lot of whistles,” Stephane Matteau said. “Lot of calls, lot of back and forth in that one.”
Esa Tikkanen, high sticking.
Bill Guerin, slashing.
Bill Guerin, elbowing.
The beat went on, and so did the boos, as the Rangers did little with their power-play opportunities. As the period ended, and as the Devils’ lead seemed bigger than one goal, the crowd became restless. The fans received little consolation from the “Let’s Go Rangers” signs that they were given upon entry.
Meanwhile, no one was going to mistake Richer for Willis Reed—who led the Knicks to an NBA title in 1970 despite an injured thigh muscle—but the Devils’ sharpshooting forward did waltz through the Garden tunnel at the end of the second intermission and returned to action. Richer, like Reed, wasn’t quite 100 percent. But he was back, which meant Lemaire could steady his lines and fully utilize the trap. Plus, Richer felt comfortable in New York. Remember, he scored the winner in Game 1 in the second overtime, and even though he missed the majority of the second period in Game 5, he still began the third period as New Jersey’s leading shooter, with three on net.
“Getting the matchups right and the lines straight, that was so important to Jacques,” Guerin said. “And who better to listen to than him with all of his Stanley Cups? We bought into all of that, and were ready for anything. We just wanted to walk out of there with a win.”
With a steady flow of line changes and fresh troops abound, the Devils took another step toward that early in the third, thanks to the Crash Line. Bobby Holik won a draw, shoved it toward the net, and Alexander Karpovtsev—the young Russian, all of 24 years old, whose miscommunication with Healy led to a goal in Game 4—goofed again, and the Devils pounced. Karpovtsev fired it past his own goaltender and along the line, instead of whacking it around the boards. Mike Peluso, positioned correctly, pushed it with his stick, as well as Richter’s glove, past the line.
It was an ugly goal that Richter probably never should have had to suffer. But Peluso notched it at 2:36, unassisted, and the Crash Line had delivered a 2–0 lead that truly allowed New Jersey to clamp down.
“The Devils had several ways to beat you, and they were doing that,” Richter said. “So, we needed to keep improving with each shift, and be ready for anything.”
If they were ready on this night, they didn’t show it. In fact, Brian Noonan later roughed Scott Niedermayer, snared a 2:00 minor, and the Devils’ power play took the ice looking for a 3–0 lead.
They found it.
Down two goals with time ticking away, the Rangers, shorthanded or not, were going to have to take some chances. Kevin Lowe moved in to forge a 3-on-2, but got caught as the play turned around, and the Devils went on the attack. An aggressive John MacLean was able to streak past the benches as Nicholls caught up to create a 2-on-1 against Zubov.
A younger player might have panicked and decided to shoot or pass too early, giddy over his good fortune on the road. But MacLean had been through the battles with the Devils all too many times. In fact, at 29 years old and with nine years of experience in the organization, you can make the case that this series meant more to him than anyone. Perhaps for those reasons, MacLean’s patience and perseverance paid off. He cruised to the right faceoff dot and waited for Zubov to lean his way. When the defenseman did, MacLean hit a turning Nicholls at the crease, who had his stick down and in position for a tip that eluded Richter’s left, sprawling skate. Nicholls lifted the puck into the net, then lifted his stick to the sky as he skated backward around the boards, waiting for his teammates to join him.
Nicholls, who quite possibly had experienced more than any one hockey player in the last two years, gave his Devils a 3–0 lead, with an assist from MacLean at 10:37. It was Nicholls’ second of the game, and fourth of the playoffs. To be sure, folks, Bernie was back.
“Leave it to Johnny MacLean,” Nicholls said, quick to deflect any of the credit. “What a pass. What a great feeling.”
The boos, at this point, gave way to silence, as the fans could not believe what was occurring in front of them. Sure, there were some Devils supporters out there, but not enough to break what seemed like a painful hush, 54 years in the making. As the teams strolled to center ice for the faceoff, many of those fans discarded those free signs, and headed for the exits. Indeed, in the year that The Curse was supposed to die, the Rangers were about to be on the brink of elimination, courtesy of their formerly harmless neighbors from the Garden State.
The Devils were not about to take their foot off the gas, however, and soon would add insult to injury. Bobby Carpenter and Tom Chorske, New Jersey’s penalty-killing duo, teamed up on a tally at even strength for the Devils’ third goal of the period. Out of a lazy scrum at center ice, as the Rangers were merely going through the motions, Carpenter broke in on a 2-on-1 with Chorske. Carpenter simply stopped at the circle and drew in Beukeboom, who laid out to stop the rush. But Carpenter stayed patient, and waited for Chorske to set up. With more time than he needed, Chorske stopped at the dot, took the pass, and lined up his shot. The slap shot from 25 feet out beat Richter on his glove side, top shelf, in a play that seemed out of a video game.
Just like that, with six minutes still to play, it was 4–0 New Jersey, and the Garden had turned into a ghost town.
“We really developed a lot of chemistry,” Chorske said of his partnership with his fellow American forward. “We sat with each other on bus rides, plane rides, on the bench, you name it. And that’s so important on penalty killing, to know each other, to know where each other will be on the ice. I was still learning the role, but to get that kind of ice time on a team like that was great, and to know you’re contributing to the success, and to be counted on and trusted, was amazing. I think everyone realized what we did for the team, and that’s what it’s all about in pro sports: to gain the respect of your teammates and coaches.”
With the way the bench exploded after that goal, you could tell that all of the Devils had that respect for both of those Killer C’s.
Meanwhile, the clock couldn’t turn fast enough for the home team, a group that no longer had time for the soap opera that had been building over the past week. Forget playing time, and injuries, and working the officials over, and sending messages. The Rangers needed two wins in the next two games, or the dream would be dead.
In the first 15 minutes of the third, it appeared as if the Rangers didn’t even believe in themselves anymore. In that span, they totaled all of two shots as Brodeur continued to build confidence and moved closer toward taking that victorious swig off the water bottle that sat behind him.
New York did avoid complete embarrassment, though. Tikkanen let one fly in frustration from the Stanley Cup logo in the neutral zone, five feet away from the blue line, and it sneaked by Brodeur and through his legs, stunningly. It was a five-hole trickler that many of the paying customers did not see, and the shutout was erased. Tikkanen from Zubov, with 3:27 to go, concluded the scoring at 4–1, as the focus turned to Game 6 at the Meadowlands.
When the “last minute to play in the third period” announcement went off, the Garden crowd let out a Bronx cheer as it had done so many times during the Rangers’ lean years. It was a stunning reminder of just how fast a team can fall, and how fast a fan base can forget that a series is never over until it’s over.
It didn’t look good, of course. But remember what the Meadowlands security guard said to Stevens just two games ago: “It’s far from over.” And until one team registered four wins in this unreal series, that phrase worked both ways.
“To have that happen in Game 5, at Madison Square Garden, it was really hard to take,” Matteau said with disappointment in his voice. “Guys were bummed. I’m not going to lie to you.”
But there were hints of optimism as the series shifted back to East Rutherford. There were things to hang their hat on, albeit small, if the Rangers so elected to:
• The Rangers had only lost three in a row twice during the regular season
• The Rangers still had only lost four postseason games total across three series
• The Rangers, if you combined the regular season with this series, were still 8–3 against the Devils
While all of those factors could help motivate the Rangers, it was hard to think the Devils wouldn’t be prepared for anything, knowing they had two chances to win one game to get to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time.
“It’s hard to say, because you know it’s such a cliché, but we really thought about things as one game as a time. We didn’t look very far down the road,” Randy McKay said. “The next game was the new game to worry about, and there really wasn’t any time to look at the future and the past. Lou and Jacques would not stand for that.”
As the final seconds ticked away, MacLean threw a shot in from center ice, which was stopped by Richter, and finally, it was over. It was so silent—and empty—in the stands, the television microphones could easily pick up the Devils celebrating on the ice.
And who was the first one to hug Brodeur? Nicholls, who bounced back from the suspension in grand fashion, and operated as if directed by a higher power on this night. Brodeur greeted him, smiled, calmly took off his mask, and went about with his winning tradition. He turned, took a victory drink, put the Gatorade bottle away, wiped off the sweat from his face, and flicked it to the ice, just like he had with all but one shot during the game. As usual, the Devils were professional in their celebration. Indeed, they were the typical Devils at the end: calm, subdued, businesslike, and ready to play the next game.
“You come in every day, and there is an expectation to uphold, and it’s an expectation and a reputation that we formed internally, inside the building,” said Brodeur, who stopped 25 of 26 Rangers shots on this night. “Sometimes, it’s hard to live up to it, because it’s not an expectation of the fans or the media, it’s an expectation of us, of the management, of the organization. But, without question, it keeps everyone accountable as far as your work habits, and your game preparation.”
But in the end, as great as Brodeur, MacLean, and Chorske all were, the night belonged to Nicholls. Perhaps Don LaGreca put it best when describing Nicholls. LaGreca, a talk show host on ESPN-AM 1050 in New York and one of the radio voices of the Rangers, grew up a Devils fan in Hawthorne, New Jersey. On his way up through the business, LaGreca covered the series for Sports Phone, a retro form of the Internet, if you will, in which patrons would dial a number to hear a sports report from an up-and-coming broadcaster. It was indeed a different time for sports journalism in New York back then, but one LaGreca will not forget, for several reasons.
“For Bernie Nicholls to play the way he did, with all that was going on in his life,” he said, as he paused, looked down, and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
If you go back to his second goal, the true backbreaker that gave New Jersey a 3–0 lead, Nicholls’ celebration couldn’t have been more fitting. As he finished his back skate, which ended in the Rangers’ slot, he was mobbed by his teammates, at which point Stevens cupped the top of Nicholls’ helmet and shook the shake of satisfaction amid the scrum. When Stevens’ head shake had subsided, Nicholls, still with an impenetrable smile on, readjusted his helmet and looked up to the Garden rafters to check the time and score.
And at the same time, who knows, maybe young Jack Nicholls was looking down at Dad, and smiling back.