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1992 NHL playoffs

A Repeat Stanley Cup For The 1992 Pittsburgh Penguins

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The Pittsburgh Penguins had won a breakthrough Stanley Cup in 1991, behind the extraordinary talents of Mario Lemieux. It was the first championship for a franchise that had never done anything of note. The 1992 Pittsburgh Penguins needed to validate that they were a legitimate contender. They did exactly that, although not without a fair share of adversity along the way.

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Bob Johnson, the head coach of that ‘91 Cup winner suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away in the August before the 1991-92 season began. Johnson’s death cast immediate sadness over the season.

Lemieux dealt with back problems and missed 16 regular season games. His numbers were still good—44 goals/87 assists—but they left him a second-team All-Star rather than leading the way at center. And even a modest amount of missed time mattered in a division race where the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals had excellent teams.

But amidst the sadness and injuries, there was still plenty of talent. Pittsburgh hired Scotty Bowman, the architect of the most recent Montreal Canadiens Dynasty (1976-79) to come on and coach. On the ice, Kevin Stevens scored 54 goals, passes for 69 assists and was a 1st-team All-Star. Joe Mullen lit the lamp 42 times. Defenseman Larry Murphy had 56 assists. And the Pens had 30-plus goal scorers in Mark Recchi and a 19-year-old kid named Jaromir Jagr.

They also had veteran help that knew something about winning repeat Stanley Cups. Paul Coffey, a fine passing defenseman, had been part of the Gretzky Dynasty in Edmonton in the late 1980s. Bryan Trottier at center had been a leader on the New York Islanders teams that won four straight Cups from 1980-83. Both were on the last legs of their career, but their intangibles made them a perfect fit on these Pittsburgh Penguins.

It added up to the most prolific scoring offense in the NHL. The problem came on the defensive side were the Penguins were 20th in goals allowed—and keep in mind, the league only had 21 teams in 1992. Tom Barrasso could be up and down at goalie.

Pittsburgh got off to a nice start, with a record of 22-13-4 as the calendar flipped to the New Year, but the remainder of the regular season was marked by mediocrity. The Pens played sub-.500 hockey from January 1 to the start of the postseason. They finished third in the old Patrick Division, behind the Rangers and Capitals. And they had gone 2-5 against both of those rivals during the regular season.

The head-to-head record was a significant issue, because the NHL structured its playoffs with a strict division format. The top four teams from each of the four divisions qualified, they were seeded 1 thru 4 and played amongst themselves to settle an entrant to the conference finals. Pittsburgh would have to go through both Washington and New York in the first two rounds.

Washington was up first. The Caps finished the regular season 45-27-8. They could come close to matching the Penguins on offense, with Dino Ciccarrelli and Dmitri Khristich leading the second-best attack in the league. And while they weren’t great on defense, their 10th-place ranking in goals allowed was still considerably better than Pittsburgh.

The story of the first two games was Caps goalie Don Beaupre. The Pens fired 68 shots on goal in Games 1 & 2. They scored three times for their trouble. The losses of 3-1 and 6-2 sent them back home in a serious hole.

In the second period of Game 3, Pittsburgh got some momentum going. They broke through with four goals, including two from Lemieux. Mario completed the hat trick in the third period to secure the 6-4 win. But Ciccarrelli answered back in Game 4, scoring four goals. A 7-2 thrashing put Pittsburgh on the brink of elimination.

Back in the nation’s capital for Game 5, the Penguins trailed 2-1 in the second period and the bump-and-grind style of play was more conducive to the Capitals. But Pittsburgh found a way to beat Beaupre and pulled away with a 5-2 win. They again trailed in the second period of Game 6, this time down 4-2. Pittsburgh pulled even 4-4 and then Mario took over, scoring a pair of power-play goals to deliver the 6-4 win.

Now it was time for Game 7 and the Penguins finally had momentum. Once again, a defensive-oriented game wasn’t what they would have preferred. But Barrasso delivered and the 3-1 win was clinched on Mullen’s empty-net goal. The comeback was complete and the Rangers were up next.

New York had finished first in the Patrick Division. They were a top-five team both offensively and defensively. Mark Messier, who had championship credentials from Edmonton, had come to the Big Apple and won the MVP award in ‘92. They had a Hall of Fame defenseman in Brian Leetch and two more good scorers in Tony Amonte and Mike Gartner.

Barrasso picked up where he’d left off in Game 7 of the Caps series, stopping 35/37 shots in Madison Square Garden and leading a 4-2 win in the opener. He then held a 2-1 lead into the latter half of the third period in Game 2. But the Rangers were on the attack. They hit Barrasso with 39 shots total and the goalie broke late, giving up three late ones in a 4-2 loss.

That late cracking sent Barrasso into another slump and he played poorly in the two middle games in Pittsburgh. In each game, the Penguins had to rally from deficits of 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 and each game went to overtime. They managed to get a split, winning Game 4 thanks to a hat trick from Ron Francis.

Game 5 was tied with 5:33 left when Jagr scored his second goal of the night to get a 3-2 win. Barrasso was back on his game and he kept it going at home in Game 6, stopping 33/34 shots. Pittsburgh clung to a 3-1 lead and then scored two empty-net goals to blow it open and seal another series.

The Penguins were only halfway through the postseason and they had faced their two biggest hurdles. And there was no letdown in sight—in fact, Pittsburgh would not lose another hockey game.

A conference finals rematch with the Boston Bruins was up next. Pittsburgh allowed 41 shots on goal in Game 1 and trailed 3-2. Shawn McEachern tied the game with 7:33 to play and Jagr won it in overtime. That was the last time the Bruins were competitive. Barrasso was completely locked in and only allowed four goals over the next three games. Stevens lit it up in Game 3 with four goals (none of them empty-net). Mario scored twice in Game 4, including an early short-handed goal to set the tone. The scores of the final three games were 5-2, 5-1 and 5-1. Pittsburgh was back in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Chicago was waiting in the Finals. The Blackhawks weren’t as deep as the Penguins, but they had talent—Jeremy Roenick was an elite scorer and Chris Chelios was a Hall of Fame defenseman. They had not one, but two all-time greats at the goalie spot with Ed Belfour starting and a mostly unknown Dominic Hasek in reserve. The Blackhawks didn’t go away easily—all four games were good and competitive.

In fact, Pittsburgh looked in serious trouble through much of Game 1, trailing 4-1. Then Lemieux got loose. Mario scored twice and the team scored four straight, the last game-winner coming from Lemieux with 0:13 left. Another Mario outburst, albeit considerably less dramatic won Game 2. He broke a 1-1 tie in the second period with two goals in less than three minutes.

Barrasso played his second straight outstanding game back in Chicago for Game 3, making a first period goal from Stevens stand up in a 1-0 win. The offenses got unleashed in Game 4. Barrasso gave up a hat trick to Dirk Graham in the first period. But the Penguins chased Belfour, nailing him for three goals in the first seven minutes. The game was 3-3 at the period and 4-4 going into the final 20 minutes.

Pittsburgh got to Hasek for two goals in the third period, from Murphy and Francis, and it stood up for a 6-5 win. There were heroes aplenty. Stevens and Jagr each scored double-digit goals for the playoffs. Barrasso, for all his ups and downs, had lifted his save percentage from 88.5% in the regular season to 90.7% in the playoffs. And no hero was bigger than Mario, who finished with 16 goals/18 assists and a Conn Smythe Trophy.

No one could know that there were some trying times ahead for the Penguin franchise. The only made it as far as the conference finals twice in the ensuing 15 years. They went through financial difficulties and threatened relocation. Mario came through one more time—he bought the team and turned it around. By 2008, Sidney Crosby and a new era of Penguins stars were picking up on the legacy that their boss had left behind in 1992.

1992 Chicago Blackhawks: A Breakthrough Trip To The Stanley Cup Finals

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The Chicago Blackhawks were a hungry franchise. One of the NHL’s “Original Six” their last Stanley Cup had come in 1961. They had made the Finals four times since then, but never won it all. And the nine-year run from 1982-90 had been exceptionally frustrating—four losses in the conference finals. Then they lost in the first round in 1991. The 1992 Chicago Blackhawks made up for at least some of the frustration when they returned to the Stanley Cup Finals.

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Chicago’s success was keyed by the second-best defense in the NHL. They had not one, but two future Hall of Famers in net. Ed Belfour was the primary starter, with 27-year-old Dominic Hasek backing him up. Anotehr all-time great, Chris Chelios was the top defensemen.

Offensively, the Blackhawks had some great individual talent. Jeremy Roenick scored 50 goals and finished fifth in the MVP voting. Steve Larmer and Michael Goulet combined to score 51 goals. But depth was lacking and Chicago ended up 15th in a 21-team league in scoring.

The Blackhawks were mediocre out of the gate and a game below .500 at the New Year. They took advantage of a soft January schedule to go 9-1-1 in a stretch that had a heavy diet of bottom-feeders. But it got Chicago above .500 and they never looked back. Chicago finished the regular season with a record of 36-29-15. It was good for second place in the old Norris Division (the teams of the Midwest). And if you wanted a reason for optimism in the playoffs there was this—the Blackhawks had beaten the division champion Detroit Red Wings five of seven times in the regular season.

That was no small thing in an era where the playoffs were strictly formatted by division, even more so than today. The top four teams in each division qualified, they were seeded 1 thru 4 and played their way off into the conference finals. Chicago would draw St. Louis in the first round.

The Blues had two outstanding players leading the way. Brett Hull scored 70 goals to lead the league. Brendan Shanahan was a 30-goal scorer. Both players would later win Cups in other places (Shanahan in Detroit, Hull in Dallas when he scored one of hockey’s most controversial goals). But St. Louis lacked depth and a contract dispute with a third star, Adam Oates, had forced the team to deal him to Boston in February.

Chicago took the series opener 3-1 behind two goals from Brian Noonan, but the Blackhawks started having problems at goalie, of all places. Belfour allowed four goals on the first eleven shots he faced in Game 2, was pulled for Hasek and Chicago lost in spite of two goals from Chelios. Hasek got the Game 3 start on the road, blew a 4-2 lead and was pulled for overtime. The game went into the second OT, but the Blues won again.

With their season teetering, the Blackhawks came out aggressively in Game 4, attacking the net and winning shots 37-19. It translated into a 5-3 win. They kept up the pressure back home in Game 5, this time outshooting St. Louis 40-24, getting two goals from Larmer and winning 6-4. Finally, the goaltending returned to form in Game 6. Belfour stopped 38/39 shots and made Roenick’s two goals stand up in a 2-1 win to seal the series.

Detroit was waiting in the Division Finals. They were stacked with Hall of Fame talent, starting with Steve Yzerman (45 goals/58 assists) and Sergei Federov (32/54). Paul Ysebaert, Jimmy Carson and Ray Sheppard were all 30-plus goal scorers. Nicklas Lidstrom was an elite defenseman. The Red Wings ranked top six in both goals scored and goals allowed.

They also couldn’t beat this Chicago team. The Blackhawks won the opener when Jocelyn Lemieux broke a 1-1 tie and scored the game-winner with 6:27 left. They grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first period of Game 2 and rode Belfour’s 24 saves to a 3-1 win.

Belfour struggled in Game 3, giving up four goals on just 24 shots and blowing leads of 2-0 and 4-2. But when Dirk Graham scored his second goal of the night with less than five minutes to play, Belfour made the 5-4 lead stand up. And the great goalie was brilliant in Game 4. It was a scoreless duel into the final two minutes when a goal by Brent Sutter completed the sweep and sent Chicago to yet another conference finals.

The Edmonton Oilers had been the most feared name in hockey during the latter part of 1980s. But Wayne Gretzky had been shipped out three years earlier and Mark Messier, the anchor of their 1990 championship team, was now in New York. The only holdover from that team was goalie Bill Ranford and there were only two notable scorers—Vincent Damphousse and Joe Murphy.

And it didn’t take long for the talent gap to show. Game 1 was tied 2-2 at the end of the first period and then Chicago started rolling. They got two goals from Larmer, two more from Roenick and rolled to an 8-2 win. They spotted Edmonton a 2-zip lead in Game 2, then unloaded 45 shots on Ranford, got two more goals from Larmer and won 4-2.

On the road for Game 3, the Blackhawks again spotted the Oilers the first two goals and again won the hockey game. This time they had to go overtime, but a Roenick goal secured the 4-3 win. And just like the first two rounds, Belfour took over when the clinch was in sight. He stopped 20/21 shots, Noonan scored twice and with a 5-1 win, the 1992 Chicago Blackhawks were going to the Stanley Cup Finals.

They were also going in red-hot, with eleven straight playoff wins. But awaiting them was another hot team—the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins had beaten two outstanding teams to start the postseason, in the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals. The Pens also swept their way through the conference finals, dispatching the Boston Bruins.

Pittsburgh was led by Mario Lemieux and a 50-goal scorer in Kevin Stevens. Joe Mullen scored 42 goals during the regular season, an there were 30-goal scorers in Mark Recchi and a 19-year-old Jaromir Jagr. They had veteran help from the NHL’s two most recent dynasties—Paul Coffey, a defenseman from the great Edmonton teams of the late 1980s and Bryan Trottier, one of the leaders of the New York Islanders who won four straight Cups from 1980-83.

That’s the long way of saying that Pittsburgh was simply a heckuva lot better than Chicago. The Blackhawks fought and made each game individually a competitive one. But the result was always the same. The Penguins won in a sweep, with Chicago only losing the four games by a combined five goals and never by more than two.

Roenick’s 12 playoff goals led the team, while Chelios had 15 assists in the postseason. Chicago had finally broken through and returned to the Stanley Cup Finals. Although maybe it’s a good thing that the fan base didn’t know how long the next wait was going to be—the Blackhawks did not return to the Finals until 2010 when they won the first of what would be three Stanley Cups in six years.

1992 Boston Bruins: A 4th Conference Finals In 5 Years

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The period of the late 1980s and early 1990s was one where the Boston Bruins enjoyed steady success, even if they couldn’t settle on a coach. They made the Finals in 1988 and 1990, each time under a different coach. They reached the conference finals in 1991. The 1992 Boston Bruins came into the season with their third coach of the last five years. Rick Bowness again got them to a conference finals.

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Boston’s best player was the all-time great defenseman Ray Borque, although he didn’t have a vintage year in ‘92. He got offensive support from Vladimir Ruzicka and Stephen Leach, who combined to score 70 goals.

It took the Bruins a little while to get rolling and that included making some mid-season personnel changes. They were barely over .500 at the New Year, before winning eight of nine games moved them decisively to the winning side of the ledger. They stumbled again in February, losing five of six. But they also beat the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins and more importantly, got some help.

Boston acquired center Adam Oates, a future Hall of Famer, with Craig Janney—a nice, above-average player—being the best part of the package they gave up. Oates’ contract problems in St. Louis had made him available and the Bruins were a big winner. It wouldn’t pay immediate dividends—Boston still finished the regular season a pedestrian 36-32-12. They were at or below the league middle in both scoring and defense. But they had the horses to be a threat in the playoffs.

The NHL playoffs were strictly division-based in 1992. The top four teams from each division qualified and played amongst each other for the first two rounds. The Adams Division, were the Bruins resided, had the weaker teams—away from the Penguins and away from the East’s top two regular seasons, the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals.

Instead, the sub-.500 Buffalo Sabres awaited in the first round. Buffalo had a pretty good offense, with five players who scored over 30 goals during the regular season. That included passer extraordinaire Dale Hawerchuck, and was led by Pat Fontaine, who lit the lamp 46 times. But the Sabres were one of the league’s worst defensive teams.

That soft Buffalo defense came ready to play in Game 1, as Boston dug themselves a 3-0 hole and couldn’t climb out, en route to a 3-2 loss. The Bruins attacked in Game 2, with 42 shots and pulled out a 3-2 overtime win to tie the series. Borque scored a goal and passed for two assists in another 3-2 victory in Game 3. And the Bruins took firm control of the series when they won the fourth game, 5-4 in overtime, in spite of only getting 19 shots on goal.

But that bad Sabre defense showed up ready to go in the Garden for Game 5 and the Bruins were shut out 2-0. Boston goalie Andy Moog then endured a disastrous Game 6, being yanked early in a 9-3 loss. The entire season was down to one game. Moog bounced back with a strong showing. In a 2-2 tie with 8:20 to play, Dave Reid scored the goal that sent the Bruins into the Division Finals.

A familiar foe, the Montreal Canadiens awaited. The Canadiens didn’t have a lot of offensive firepower. They only ranked 14th in a 21-team league in goals scored. They only had one 30-goal scorer in Kirk Muller and only one future Hall of Famer—center Denis Savard, a small number in a league that’s generous in how many it inducts into its Hall.

What Montreal could do was play defense and that started with one of the greatest goalies in the history of the sport. Patrick Roy was in net and anchored the unit that led the league in goal prevention. The other thing the Canadiens had established was an ability to beat the Bruins, going 5-2-1 in the regular season rivalry games.

But Montreal, like Boston, had struggled with a lesser opponent in the first round, needing all seven games to dispatch the Hartford Whalers (today’s Carolina Hurricanes). And the Bruins peppered Roy in the opener. Leach scored two goals to lead the way in a 6-4 win. Game 2 was a grinding defensive game with neither team getting more than 25 shots. It should have been tailor-made for Roy, especially when he had a 2-1 lead in the final five minutes. But Dave Poulin scored to tie it, the Bruins won in overtime and came home in command of the series.

Another defense-first game followed in Game 3 and once again it was Moog winning the battle with Roy in a 3-2 win. The Bruin goalie delivered again in Game 4. Boston clung to a 1-0 lead thanks to second period goal from Poulin, as Moog kept turning the Canadiens away. Finally, an empty-net goal sealed the 2-0 win and the Bruins were going to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Pittsburgh had been up-and-down in the regular season, but Mario Lemieux’s defending champs had put it together in the playoffs, ousting both the Capitals and Rangers. The Penguins still had the best offense in the league, including All-Star forward Kevin Stevens and his 54 regular season goals. Joe Mullen was another 40-goal scorer in black-and-gold, while Mark Recchi lit the lamp 39 times.

That was too much firepower for Boston to handle. In spite of outshooting Pittsburgh 41-31 in the opener and leading in the thrid period, the Bruins lost in overtime. Moog gave up five goals on just 23 shots in a Game 2 loss. Stevens was unstoppable in Game 3, beating the Bruin goalie four times in a 5-1 final. Another 5-1 loss in Game 4 ended a series where the Bruins were outscored 19-7.

It had still been a strong playoff run and marked the fourth time in five years that Boston had reached the conference finals. They were only losing postseason series to teams led by names like Gretzky (1988), Messier (1990) and Lemieux (1991-92). That should have pointed to the need for patience.

But patience was definitely not a trait of NHL teams in this time period and it’s never been a trait of Boston sports. Another coaching change was made and this latest spin of the carousel was too much—the franchise would not make it back to the conference finals for nearly twenty years, in the Stanley Cup year of 2011.

1992 Stanley Cup Finals: Two Straight In The Steel City

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The Pittsburgh Penguins were the defending Stanley Cup champions, but it hadn’t been a dominant year. The offense, led by Mario Lemieux was outstanding. With Lemieux scoring 44 goals and passing for 87 assists, the Penguins had the second-best offense in the NHL.  Kevin Stevens was a 50-goal scorer and Joe Mullen lit the lamp 42 times, giving Pittsburgh a well-balanced attack. But goaltending was a problem.

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Chicago was the opposite. The Blackhawks had no problems stopping the opposition, ranking 2nd in the league in defense behind goaltender Ed Belfour, but they were a mediocre offensive team.

Jeremy Roenick could both score and pass, as his 53 goals/50 assists demonstrated, but if you stopped Roenick you stopped Chicago, as no help was forthcoming.

Both teams finished the regular season with 87 points. They were five teams in the NHL that acquired more, but the way the conference playoffs unfolded, there was no doubt about who was peaking at the right time.

It didn’t start out that way—in fact, the Penguins fell behind the Washington Capitals 3-1 in games in the first round. But they won three straight to win that series. Pittsburgh then fell behind 2-1 in the series to the New York Rangers, but again won three in a row to advance. Now they were in the groove and a conference finals sweep of the Boston Bruins sent Lemieux to his second straight Finals.

Chicago also fell behind in the first round, losing two of the first three games to the St. Louis Blues, but they righted the ship quickly. Three straight wins and advancement followed. Chicago then went barreling through the Detroit Red Wings, and the post-Wayne Gretzky Edmonton Oilers without a loss, sweeping both series.

The Blackhawks came to the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals with 11 straight wins. Pittsburgh had seven consecutive. Now it was about who could keep it going.

Two coaches who had, or would have Stanley Cup pedigrees elsewhere were on the sidelines. Scotty Bowman, one of the great minds to ever occupy an NHL bench, had won Cups in Montreal and had taken over this season for retired Bob Johnson in Pittsburgh. Mike Keenan, who would one day hoist the Cup with the Rangers in 1994, was coaching Chicago.

Mario Lemieux was, quite unsurprisingly the difference. He scored two goals in 5-4 win to open the series, and then got two more in Game 2, as Pittsburgh’s 3-1 win meant they had defended their home ice. The series shifted to the Windy City, and defense ruled. Stevens scored the game’s only goal in a 1-0 win that put the Penguins on the brink of a championship.

The victories in Games 2 & 3 underscored the improvement of Pittsburgh goalie Tom Barrasso in the playoffs. The 26-year-old netminder had allowed an average of 3.53 goals per game in the regular season, but against the tougher competition in the playoffs, his averaged dipped to 2.82. Barrasso’s showing in Games 2 & 3, particularly the latter, where he turned back 27 shots, was making Pittsburgh unbeatable.

Offenses opened back up in Game 4. Roenick had been held without so much as an assist for three games, but with the season on the line he scored twice. But Pittsburgh showcased a balanced attack and six different players scored. These included Lemieux and Stevens, and both also had two assists. Pittsburgh won the game 6-5. It was their second straight Stanley Cup and Lemieux was Conn Smythe MVP for the second consecutive year.