“I have to admit, going into Game 6, I wasn’t very optimistic at all. And for those first 30 minutes of Game 6, the Devils were just so dominant. And all I could think of was this: let’s just do this with running time to get it over with.”
—Howie Rose, New York Rangers play-by-play voice (1985–1995)
Players often make last-minute ticket requests, especially during the NHL postseason. It comes with the territory when you’re a professional athlete; people are going to exhaust every possibility of getting into a building if history might be made on a given night. Often, those requests come from acquaintances the players hardly even know.
But that wasn’t the case for Martin Brodeur prior to Game 6. No, on May 25, 1994, the request was made by him personally, and it was hardly for strangers. With a chance to secure a bid to the Stanley Cup Finals as a 22-year-old goaltender, this barely-needing-to-shave, aw-shucks rookie, who grew up watching the Canadiens do this with ease in Montreal seemingly on a yearly basis, wanted to make it even more special. He requested that his father, Denis, and his own fiancée, Melanie, be in attendance on this Wednesday night in East Rutherford. He wanted them to come down from Montreal and sit smack dab in the middle of the Swamp as the Devils attempted to derail destiny, eliminate the rival Rangers in six games, and clinch this once-moribund franchise’s first-ever conference title.
Denis, a former goaltender himself, knew what it was like to play this great game at a high level. In fact, he helped lead Team Canada to the bronze medal at the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Sixteen years after the Olympics, Martin was born, and 38 years after the medal performance, Martin was suited up in red, white, and black, living every parent’s dream in front of 19,040 fans in Game 6.
Of course, with the season already a success—after appearing in just four NHL games prior to 1993–94, Brodeur sculpted a rookie of the year campaign and established a foundation for perhaps the greatest NHL goaltending career of all time—Brodeur had little more to prove, especially given the fact that he wasn’t even the starter at the opening of the season. But as long as the Devils were there, they might as well go out and win the damn thing. And to do that in front of Denis and Melanie, well, that would make it extra special.
So, as the teams took the ice at the Meadowlands in front of a crazed crowd for what would be the most important game of the season—and perhaps, history—for both franchises, Brodeur was able to look up 12 rows to his left and see his family watching over him with passionate pride.
The setup, the orchestration, was perfect. And with the way the Devils opened what would easily go down as one of the greatest games in NHL history, it clearly seemed as if the Brodeurs were indeed on track for a celebratory evening some 370 miles away from home.
“There was no question about it, and there was no other way to describe it,” Brian Leetch said. “The Devils were all over us.”
In a setting that had become all too familiar to everyone, Mark Messier and Bobby Carpenter, the two faceoff demons, lined up for the opening draw, which Messier won. In a first period that can only be described as dominating, that was about the only thing the Rangers would win in the first 20 minutes.
“We came out so fast and so hard, mentally, we had to make sure we controlled our emotions, as well,” Bill Guerin said. “Realize that the game is not won in the first period, there’s a long way to go, control yourself. But at the same time, don’t change the way you’re playing.”
The Devils weren’t about to do that. After all, in a series that saw such ebb and flow and such great stretches of hockey for both sides, this period may have been the best by either team.
“They were all over the ice,” said former New York Post columnist Jay Greenberg.
Claude Lemieux gathered some momentum early, sneaked into the Rangers’ zone on the left wing, and fired a wrist shot from the point that was kicked aside by Mike Richter. The game’s first shot belonged to the Devils, and it only seemed fitting, because more were on the way.
“They came right out and dominated the game,” said the Post’s Larry Brooks. “They should have been up 6–0. They had scoring chance after scoring chance. Honestly, Richter was as good as he’s ever been. That, and the Devils hit a bunch of posts, as well.”
The Rangers were scrambling from the opening drop, in fact, and the Devils sensed it. Tommy Albelin had a surprisingly open slot, and took a one-timer slap shot off a feed from Lemieux that Richter stopped. The rebound caromed out to Carpenter, whose wrist shot was also blocked by Richter.
With 15:50 left, the Devils entered the zone with Bernie Nicholls and Stephane Richer. Nicholls, also stunned by the amount of working space he had been given, took a slap shot of his own from the right point. Saved with Richter’s sprawling glove.
“Mike Richter,” Gary Thorne said on the ESPN broadcast, “is holding down the fort right now for the New York Rangers.”
Indeed, in a game where the buildup squarely belonged to Messier, it was Richter who was stealing the show. The Devils, with their portion of the crowd gaining in volume with every rush, fired 13 shots on net in the first period, and should have had even more. They also had three 2-on-1s in the first five minutes.
The onslaught was on. But the man who entered the game with a 1.94 goals-against average was living up to his numbers.
“Absolutely, it could have easily been 5–0, 6–0,” Howie Rose said, echoing the sentiments of so many who were on hand at the Meadowlands. “It was one of Richter’s greatest moments. He was truly carrying them on the biggest stage.”
The Devils refused to let up. Richter had to make a right-leg save on Bruce Driver that pushed the fans to the edges of their seats. A minute later, Valeri Zelepukin waited for Stephane Matteau to give up his body, which he did, allowing Zelepukin to create some room for a slap shot that again caught Richter on the right leg.
“This is not a good sign for the New York Rangers,” Bill Clement said. “They are not sharp on their man-to-man coverage.”
Seven minutes in, New Jersey had registered five scoring chances to New York’s one. And with 13:41 left in the period, the Devils had an 8–1 advantage in shots.
“It’s an unbelievable boost sometimes, when you have a player who can carry a team through a tough time,” Mike Keenan said of Richter. “It’s certainly not the situation you always want to be in. This is a team sport. But if you have talented players, and one of them picks it up when everyone else needs it, it eventually picks everyone up. Mike was pretty sharp that night.”
But at 8:03 of the first, the charge finally paid dividends for the home team. Viacheslav Fetisov, paired with Scott Niedermayer in a rare defensive-offensive backline parlay that was oddly forged by Jacques Lemaire in Game 5, pushed the puck out of his own end with a beautiful diving poke to center ice. Zelepukin was able to corral the puck and carried it with steam from center ice and into the right corner of the Rangers’ zone. With a swift spin move, Zelepukin caught a charging Niedermayer, pinching into the left faceoff circle. Niedermayer snared the pass and let go of a line-drive wrist shot that deflected off Rangers forward Sergei Nemchinov’s stick and past Richter’s shoulder. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come for New Jersey, the thinking being that if the Devils were going to beat Richter on this night, they’d need to have a few lucky bounces.
Either way, the Devils didn’t care. Nor did their fans. After a thorough eight minutes of play, New Jersey was rewarded with a 1–0 lead that allowed them to utilize the trap and truly suck the life out of the beleaguered Blueshirts, guarantee or not.
It was Niedermayer’s second of the postseason, and while it wasn’t the prettiest goal of his likely Hall of Fame career, it was arguably the most important. It was hard to tell by looking at Niedermayer’s demeanor. In classic Devils fashion, with the crowd in a tizzy, Niedermayer calmly chewed on his mouthpiece, went over to bench to receive congratulations, and simply leaned over the boards in exhaustion and relief.
“When you have a one-goal lead, it brings you close to a two-goal lead,” Clement said, “and coming back from a two-goal deficit, for the Rangers, is like climbing Mount Everest. You can make it, but the majority of people that try, fail.”
While the Rangers would obviously make an effort and “try” to get back in this game, there was an overwhelming sense of “Here we go again.” The Curse was hovering again, and despite Richter’s every effort, it seemed that the Rangers were about to make the 54-year drought a 55-year drought.
“It had to fall apart in one way, shape, or form, right?” asked the Post’s Mark Everson. “This was the Rangers we’re talking about.”
In the Meadowlands press box that was so close to the ice, the beat writers had to start thinking about a Rangers obituary, even though the game was still so young.
“Keenan has been under enormous attack in New York by the press, especially a talk-radio sports station, about the moves he’s made or hasn’t made, and the sitting of some players who are injured or aren’t injured,” Thorne said, referring to WFAN. “Boy, I’ll tell you, it’s all because of 1940. In New York, you cannot get away from that year.”
The Devils didn’t make anything easier, either. Even after killing off a Bobby Holik hooking penalty at 15:12, New Jersey showed no fatigue. In fact, they sustained the pressure and soon doubled the lead. Fresh out of the penalty box, Holik hit a streaking Nicholls, who charged into the offensive zone. At that point, the Devils took the route that worked the first time against Richter, as Niedermayer gracefully pinched into the slot. Nicholls, just off to Richter’s right, saucered a crisp pass to Niedermayer, who one-timed it toward Richter. Lemieux not only screened Richter, but was able to get a stick on Niedermayer’s shot as well, which altered the direction of it and beat Richter through the five-hole at 17:32 of the first.
Suddenly, it was 2–0 Devils, and the Rangers were one step closer to the death of the dream. Lemieux’s seventh goal of the postseason brought the crowd to a fever pitch, as the white pom-poms that were given out upon entry into the arena seemed to rise into the air in unison. There were blank stares along the Rangers bench from Keenan and his players, and there seemed like no end in sight for this Devils flurry.
“All I can remember saying is, ‘Don’t pull me out of this game. Please. Please.’ Because I felt I was at the top of my game, and though we were down two goals, I knew we could come back,” Richter said with a passion in his voice unrivaled by anyone in the series. “‘Don’t pull me out of this game, Mike. Don’t do it.’ In fact, when I gave up the second goal, I did not look over at the bench at all. I didn’t want to give him any chance to pull me.”
He was right, of course. Leave it to the best goaltender in American hockey history to know when he was at his best. Was he trailing? Absolutely. But was he struggling? Absolutely not.
“Richter kept the game within reach,” Mike Francesa said. “Lot of people forget about that. What a performance he put on in that Game 6.”
Keenan agreed. In fact, as Richter hovered around the same net he was pulled from in Game 4 and slowly stared up at the scoreboard that was forecasting the Rangers’ doom, Keenan stuck with his top netminder.
“Richter, in my eyes, held the Rangers in there,” said Devils play-by-play man Mike Miller. “New Jersey, to me that night, was the better hockey team. The energy level for them was unbelievable.”
Indeed, if the Rangers were going to make any changes, it was not going to be between the pipes. Glenn Healy could get comfortable at the end of the bench. The team that changed its personnel drastically at the trading deadline, the team that changed its line combinations drastically throughout the series, and the team that changed its story drastically with each off day, was going to sit tight.
For now.
Not that it made anyone in the organization comfortable at the time. Certainly not general manager Neil Smith, who admirably sat in that famous New Jersey press box with the walls crumbling around him. With two minutes left in the opening period, Smith, in a grey suit, white shirt, and black tie, had his hands over his mouth, looking up at the scoreboard for an answer that wasn’t there. As his coach feverishly chewed on ice cubes just feet below him, Smith chose to gnaw on a coffee stirrer.
The press box was at the top of a section of regular seating, instead of the more common halo press boxes that surround NHL rinks from the rafters. To the right or left of anyone in that box were lower-bowl sections filled with Devils fans who were out for Rangers blood. Everyone—and everything—was within earshot.
“I give him credit for that,” Everson said. “GMs didn’t have to sit there, and many chose not to. He was dying a thousand deaths in that press box that night, for sure, but he stayed right there.”
That was no easy task, especially after the second goal.
“There was a guy in an aisle seat the whole time, just working me over,” Smith said. “It was bad. It was almost to the point where security was going to have the guy removed. I told them, ‘No.’ I told them that ‘It was okay. Let him stay.’ But this guy was killing me. All night, it was ‘Back to the drawing board, Neil! Back to the drawing board!’ The whole game. It made me sick to my stomach, I have to tell you.”
Smith stuck it out through the first period, as did his limping team. In a frame with few positives—and facing the possibility of needing to be the first team in the series at any point to come back from a two-goal deficit—the Rangers, at least, were given a power play, thanks to a Driver high stick on Eddie Olczyk at 19:07. The man advantage would carry over to the second period, and perhaps give the Rangers an ounce of life.
It was something for New York to cling to as the intermission horn sounded and the Devils fans belted out the sing-song chant of their rookie goaltender who stopped nine shots in the period. “Mar-ty, Mar-ty” was the chant of choice, much to the liking of Denis and Melanie in Row 12. Indeed, Marty was 40 minutes from winning a conference championship, and everyone could feel it—including the road team.
“We were playing not to make a mistake at first,” Doug Lidster said. “It was more of a mental challenge for us than anything. We had to just go for it.”
Lidster was one of two changes to the Rangers lineup for Game 6, replacing the suspended Jeff Beukeboom after his hit on Richer in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden. The other change was Olczyk replacing an injured Brian Noonan, and though the scoreboard didn’t show it, both players paid dividends in the first frame. Olczyk drew the Driver penalty, and Lidster, who had one of the harder shots in the league, did enough in Keenan’s eyes to replace Alexander Karpovtsev on the first defensive pairing, alongside Leetch.
But none of that mattered to the Devils as the second period started.
“We had them,” Lemieux said. “We were playing well, and we needed to stick to our system for 40 minutes.”
Easier said than done, though.
The Devils maintained pressure early in the second as both teams seemed to settle into a groove. With 16:20 left, Niedermayer, the best player on either side to this point, again made some room for himself and fired a shot that Richter stopped. But really, that was one of few charges as the Devils began to clamp down with the trap, waiting for their offensive chances rather than keep up their first-period pace. Stopping the Rangers became their top priority, and they were achieving it.
“Even when the Rangers get into the Devils’ zone, it’s one pass, hardly ever a shot, and Devils out,” Clement said. “No sustained pressure, no sustained forecheck by the Rangers at all.”
The Devils fed off that. Five minutes in, Richer, from behind the net and with two defenders draped on him, backhanded a pass to John MacLean in front of the net. In a scene that had already played out a dozen times, a Devils forward—in this case, MacLean—could not believe the time he was being given. So, he took it, positioned himself 12 feet in front of Richter, and flicked a shot that stunned Richter under his arm. Richter made the save, though, as the puck fell to the top of his skate, allowing him to cover.
That easily could have been curtains for the Rangers. A three-goal deficit on the road in an elimination game against an inspired New Jersey team with 35 minutes to go would not have been overcome, no matter who guaranteed what.
“We knew we needed that third one,” Ken Daneyko said. “We were playing well, keeping it up, but if we got to a three-goal lead, it would have been over.”
Keenan knew that, too. Still searching for answers, he took advantage of the stoppage in play, and called one of the league’s more notable timeouts at 14:28. As Queen’s “We Will Rock You” belted out through the loudspeakers, longtime Devils public address announcer Bob Arsena made the call that surprised many in the building: “Timeout, Rangers.”
“The Rangers are going to use their one 30-second timeout right here. Mike Keenan just feels, I think, that this thing is starting to drift away,” Thorne said. “There comes a point in a game like this, where a team sometime senses it’s over. If that happens, it is over, and the Rangers may be getting dangerously close to that point, out of frustration.”
MacLean and the Devils, frustrated at themselves for not snaring that 3–0 lead, casually skated over to their bench, and Steve Larmer and the Rangers did the same to theirs. The Devils took a drink and enjoyed the respite.
It was a different story at the other bench.
“I just looked straight ahead,” Leetch said. “I didn’t look back at the coaches at all.”
In reality, there was no need to, because Keenan didn’t have much to say during the break.
“Mike didn’t say anything at the timeout,” Matteau said.
So, here were the do-or-die Rangers, some 34 minutes away from being eliminated from a tumultuous series in which some players were benched and others suspended, and the coach called a timeout, only to leave it to the players to figure out what to do next.
Larmer, who was on the ice, not the bench, jawed motivational words to those sitting in front of him. Matteau, who was on the ice as well, looked up at assistant coach Colin Campbell. Among those sitting was Messier, with Glenn Anderson on his right and Craig MacTavish on his left. Messier turned to his right, looked down the bench, and just started to shake his head. He continued to look there, and ultimately said to his teammates, “You good?” When they nodded, he then turned to the left, spit, then twisted back and looked up toward the direction of Keenan. His coach did not return his gaze, so Messier just hopped over the bench and took the ice for the next shift, alongside Anderson and Adam Graves.
Not much happened during the break, and though the Devils continued to control play for long stretches after it, the timeout is remembered as the moment that Messier truly took this team over. He had experienced a decent series to that point—posting one goal and at least one point in every contest before Game 5, plus being a beast on faceoffs—but he certainly wasn’t the player Rangers fans had come to know and love. With his famous guarantee now hovering over his head, and a deficit that was still manageable thanks to his goaltender, this was now his team and his time…or else.
But again, like everything else in this schizophrenic season in New York, that time started ominously. As Messier prepared for the draw to the left of Brodeur, Keenan suddenly sprung to life. He put one leg on the bench, leaned down, looked at his players, and said simply, “Let’s go.” Of course, the Devils won the faceoff, held the zone, and Chorske immediately hit the post in front of Richter, a near-miss that could have ended it right there. Then, Albelin kept it in the zone and fired a slap shot from the right point that hit Chorske in front of Richter, or that, too, might have sneaked in and essentially ended the series.
“They just could not get the third goal,” Brooks said. “Just wasn’t going to happen. There was just an overwhelming feeling that they were not going to score again. At that point, it was just a matter of time before the Rangers got one.”
New York survived the post-timeout flurry and slowly started to mount some offense. At 10:26, Matteau had some open space in the slot and fired a shot toward Brodeur, but it was blocked. Still, the Rangers had some sustained pressure, and ever so slowly, things were starting to even out everywhere but on the scoreboard.
“Sometimes, things come too easy to you. And things were coming so easy to the New Jersey Devils, like they’ve almost looked to me as if they’ve let up a little,” Clement said. “Yes, the Rangers are still coming, but the Devils seem a little unsure of themselves in their defensive coverage, and the last five minutes, they’ve been a step behind.”
All the while, the Rangers were making quick changes to keep their players fresh. Leetch intercepted a Scott Stevens clearing attempt at center ice, carried into the zone, and left the puck for a streaking Joey Kocur on the right board. With 7:09 remaining, Kocur, left alone, fired a shot from the right circle that Brodeur stopped but couldn’t find because Leetch ran into him. The puck caromed to the corner as Kocur centered again, but a sprawled out Brodeur stopped and covered as his helmet flew off.
When putting his helmet back on during the stoppage, he had to pause and laugh. It was clear he was still confident. His teammates? Not so much.
Four minutes later, the Devils broke down in the neutral zone—their home away from home, their comfort zone, their turf—and it cost them. It also changed the course of the series, and history, forever.
Guerin had the puck five feet away from the Devils bench, as a line change was needed. The common New Jersey strategy there would have been to fire it down behind Richter, allowing time for the fresh troops to enter. But with the new line half over the boards already, Guerin instead turned and pushed a harmless backhand about seven feet…right onto the stick of Messier, who graciously turned and headed across center ice.
“Because of the style we played, we probably strayed from our system on three, four, maybe five occasions, and that’s it. But it cost us,” Driver said. “But that’s what happens in the playoffs. You make mistakes that you don’t normally make, and the puck ends up in the net. And I can tell you, I remember that stray.”
The line change happened, but not in full, and at this point, the Devils were caught behind the play because the clearing attempt hadn’t traveled far enough. Guerin was still stuck out there as a result. Confusion reigned, and the Rangers pounced. Messier—who saw a sudden change on his line with Graves at the 10:12 mark, in which Alexei Kovalev replaced Anderson at right wing—aggressively entered the zone and calmly left a soft, seamless backhand pass to Kovalev at the right point. Kovalev, surprised he had as much ice as he had because of the bad line change, created some more space, set up his shot, cocked twice, and fired a slap shot from the top of the right circle that beat Brodeur and cut the Devils’ lead in half. Brodeur was in position and had enough time to see the puck, but he was ultimately screened by Daneyko and Graves, who were tangled as they neared the crease.
“Those last two minutes, I’ll never forget,” Nicholls said. “Everyone’s trying to change, and Billy got caught, and then they come down and Kovalev scores. That was it. They were back in it just like that. The momentum was all us until that point. We dominated the game, we knew we were the better team, and we were only up 2–1. If we would have been able to get to the locker room up 2–0 it would have been over.”
Instead, at 18:19 of the second, the sleeping giant was awake.
“They scored late, and they scored on a line change,” Driver said. “Our forwards changed, and they came off at a point on the ice where they never changed, and in a position where we never changed: when the puck was coming back toward us, instead of deep in their zone. And all that did was create a 3-on-2 opportunity, which gave them a little bit of time to make a play. That’s all they needed. Just that little bit of time. Boom, boom, it’s in the net, and all of a sudden…we’re done.”
Strong words. Keep in mind, there were still 21 minutes to play, and the Devils were still leading by a goal.
“But it didn’t matter anymore,” Brooks said. “They weren’t mature enough yet to come back from that.”
That much was evident. In fact, when Nicholls was interviewed by SportsChannel’s Stan Fischler between the second and third periods in a studio not far from the Devils locker room, the team’s psyche was written all over his face.
“They were done,” Fischler said. “He looked as if he had seen a ghost.”
The feeling was mutual in the stands. Kovalev’s tally ignited the Rangers’ portion of the crowd more so than perhaps any goal that New York had scored in that building going back to 1982.
“That’s 100 percent right. There was a feeling now that, hey, we’ve got a shot in this game,” Joe Benigno said. “But you still never felt 100 percent confident, because this was the Rangers we’re talking about. When you travel a lifetime without winning, you just never feel too confident. But they had a shot, and after the way that game started, that was all you could ask for.”
But would the inferiority complex overwhelm New Jersey in the third period? Would the Devils be able to recover?
“We never thought of it from where the Devils were in the game,” Lidster said. “I do know that we never lost our confidence.”
So, here were the Devils, trying like mad to get that third goal to win the conference crown on home ice and avoid a Game 7 in New York, and suddenly, it felt as if they were the enemy in their own building.
“It was unbelievable,” Lemieux said. “The place just went absolutely crazy for [the Rangers] after that goal. We all knew what went into playing the Rangers at home, and we knew their fans would always be there. But this was different. It was as if everyone turned on us.”
Clearly shaken, it was a different collection of Devils that walked down the hallway after the second period than the group that did so after the first. That was evident in the press box, too.
“In their locker room, there was finger pointing and complaining, and obviously, in our room, we had life,” Smith said. “They were not a happy group. Imagine how tight you’d be, if you were that team that could have been up 6–0 or 7–0 with the way they started the game.”
In the second period, the shots had evened at 13 per side, and the Rangers scored the lone goal. The tide had officially turned.
“It was really Kovalev who broke the ice for us. They were dominating play, they were up a couple of goals, and their crowd was really feeling it. You could sense it,” Smith said. “Then, Kovalev scores, and the place erupts…for us? In a matter of seconds, the whole place turned. It was surreal. And the story is the Devils were clearly disheveled after all of that, knowing that they were playing as well as ever. Yet, this goal made it a 2–1 game, and we had all the momentum.”
It certainly wasn’t the most confident bunch of Devils that headed into the locker room, and the Rangers knew it. Despite being shorthanded to start the third—thanks to an Esa Tikkanen knee-to-knee trip on Richer—everyone in the building knew which team had the more powerful propulsion, no matter what the scoreboard said.
“The reason momentum can change so quickly in that setting is because the teams were so evenly matched,” Richter said. “A missed shot here, a post there, a line change, and all of a sudden, everything shifts. It’s the little things that can make massive differences.”
Truer words were never spoken.
“The Kovalev goal, it gave them hope,” Howie Rose said, “but I remember with that one look in Mark Messier’s eyes, you could tell that something else was coming later.”
As the Vancouver Canucks, who had secured the Western Conference championship the night before, sat and watched like the rest of the hockey world, awaiting their opponent in the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals, NHL history was about to be made in the Garden State.
“We are going to have one hell of a third period,” Thorne said.