It was 20 years ago today, and if all you recall about May 27, 1994, is “Matteau…Matteau…Matteau!” then you have forgotten the best hockey game ever played within the boundaries of New York, all 84:24 of high-stakes competition that produced a breathtaking display of the sport.
It was Game 7 of the epochal Eastern Conference finals between the Rangers and the Devils that already had featured a pair of double-overtime matches, the first won by New Jersey’s Stephane Richer in the opener at the Garden, the next won by the Blueshirts’ Stephane Matteau in Game 3 at the Meadowlands.
It was Game 7, 48 hours after the most famous game in Rangers’ history, the Game 6 guarantee on which Mark Messier paid off in multiples of three.
It was 48 hours after heartbreak for New Jersey and new life for the Rangers, now obviously on their way to their manifest destiny. For the Devils, it was 48 hours after squandering their 2-0 Game 6 lead and with it their 3-2 lead in the series.
That game on that Friday night on Broadway, it was going to be a coronation.
Not so fast.
I covered the Devils that season. That morning, at their skate at the practice rink, they’d already grown weary of hearing about the guarantee.
This out of the notebook from Scott Stevens, who would have to wait one more year before hoisting the first of his three Stanley Cups as New Jersey captain:
“It’s silly; what, I’m supposed to respond with words?” Stevens said when asked if he’d care to guarantee victory in Game 7. “It’s how you play.
“I lead by example, through hard work and if that’s not good enough, someone else can do the job.”
They’d grown weary of hearing about the guarantee and they were defiant in the face of what certainly would be impending doom while essentially all of New York prepared for the fait accompli.
“As far as we’re concerned in this locker room, the Rangers did not win Game 6,” said Bruce Driver, who would sign a free-agent contract with the Blueshirts following the 1994-95 season. “We lost it.”
The Devils weren’t ready to win that Game 6, and in fact their room devolved into some chaos between the second and third periods, with players pointing fingers and shouting at one another after a 2-0 lead — that could have swelled to 5-0 so lopsided were the first 35 minutes of the match — had been sliced to 2-1 with 1:41 to go in the second.
New Jersey wasn’t ready to win Game 6 and Mike Richter would not lose it.
Again, though, that was Game 6, and even now in this space 20 years later, overshadowing the Game 7 anniversary.
Maybe this is similar to Game 3 of the 1951 NL playoffs, the Bobby Thomson game from which the Flying Scot’s Shot Heard ’Round the World and the “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” call diminished everything that had preceded it at the Polo Grounds on that Oct. 3.
Anyway. Two nights after having played the most memorable game ever, the Rangers and Devils trumped it. They did. The teams played at breakneck speed. Well, the Rangers did. The Devils played the trap.
New Jersey played the trap expertly and when the Rangers were able to beat it, they couldn’t beat the rookie in nets named Martin Brodeur, on whom they fired 48 shots, if only 28 in regulation. And of those 28, Brodeur was beaten once on perhaps the most artistic and spectacular goal of Brian Leetch’s career.
It was at the other end of the ice from the press box just above the Zamboni entrance at the Garden and I can see it as if it were, well, today. Leetch carried the puck below the goal line, marked closely by Billy Guerin, on his way from left to right behind the net.
But without warning, No. 2 stopped, pivoted and did a 360 spin-a-rama before slipping a backhander through Brodeur’s five-hole at 9:31 of the second period for a 1-0 Rangers’ lead.
The Garden exploded in frenzy. The noise never stopped, not though the intermission, not though the third period, not through shift after shift through which the fans counted down, the Rangers clamped down and the Devils still went about their methodical difference, rolling four lines.
From my notes midway through the third period: “Jacques still rolling!???” That would have been Jacques, as in Lemaire, the Devils’ coach.
The noise kept coming. And then in the final minute, the Devils were coming. The Rangers iced the puck with 48 seconds to go, they iced it again 24 seconds later, and then there was yet another draw to Richter’s right with 18.6 seconds to go.
The noise … the noise … the silence when Valeri Zelepukin jammed in the tying goal — the tying goal! — with 7.7 seconds to go … the absolute silence that accompanies stunned disbelief. The puck was in, the red light was on, and Richter got physical with referee Bill McCreary, who did not call a penalty on No. 35.
From hockey death, new life for the Devils. From the edge of ecstasy, despair for Garden fans, who at that moment had lost all hope. Tell the truth: You know you did.
I walked around the concourse between periods. There was eerie silence. Rangers fans averted their eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting for 54 years to become 55. Doomsday for which team, exactly?
The Rangers attacked in the first overtime, launching 15 shots on net. The Devils and Brodeur defended. Still, the fans in the Garden did not dare believe. It was still quiet during the walk around the corridor at the next intermission.
Just about four minutes into the second overtime, the Devils had their best chance to win. Richter left a rebound in front of a Richer shot. Somehow, John MacLean could not get to the puck. And away they went toward the New Jersey zone.
Slava Fetisov couldn’t clear the puck up the left side. Matteau retrieved it in the left corner and swept behind the net, coming out on the other side, the wrap-around caroming off a desperately sliding Fetisov …
… and, from my spot just to the left of the net, I could see it, and right from my notebook: “It’s in!”
At 4:24 of the second overtime it was in.
And it was a Garden of Glee.
“Matteau … Matteau … Matteau!”
It was the most famous goal and most famous call in New York hockey history, a goal, a call and a moment never to be forgotten.
But so never to be forgotten should be the entirety of the 84:24 that came before it. It was hockey at its best on the grand stage, never duplicated before or since in these parts.
Happy Anniversary to that great game.