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1981 Boston Bruins: A Foreshadowing Playoff Disappointment

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The 1970s were a time of great success for the Boston Bruins. They won a couple Stanley Cups and routinely advanced deep into the postseason. Given that, losing in the quarterfinals of the playoffs in 1980 was a little disappointing, even if it was to the eventual Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders. The 1981 Boston Bruins unfortunately showed that the early exit was no fluke, nor simply the result of a bad draw.

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The Bruins had good scorers. Rick Middleton was an up-and-comer that would be the franchise’s best player in the years to come. He scored 44 goals in 1981. Peter McNab rang up 39 goals. And the quintet of Wayne Cashman, Ray Borque, Steve Kasper, Dwight Foster and Don Marcotte formed a nice coalition of 20-plus goal scorers. Boston ranked ninth in the league for goals scored.

Borque was 20-years-old and the future Hall of Famer was the rising star in that group. As a defenseman, his biggest value came at the other end of the ice. Borque, along with the great 32-year-old veteran Brad Park, keyed a defense that was the best in the league at limiting shots.

The quality team defense covered up for subpar goaltending. Veteran Rogie Vachon was the primary goalie, and 23-year-old Jim Craig—fresh off his heroics for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team—got some starts. Neither were very good, but with limited exposure, the Bruins ranked sixth in goals allowed.

Boston won two of their first three, including a 3-2 win over archrival Montreal. But late October and early November were a disaster. A road trip west resulted in an 0-8-1 stretch. Even though the Bruins stabilized after that, they were still sub-.500 at 13-16-7 when the New  Year arrived.

After the first two games after the calendar flipped resulted in two more losses, Boston finally played their first sustained stretch of good hockey. They went 9-2-1 for the balance of January. That included a 6-4 win over a good Philadelphia Flyers team and February opened with a win over the Islanders.

Another western swing came in February and this one went better. The Bruins went 3-1-1 and knocked off Wayne Gretzky’s up-and-coming Edmonton Oilers 5-1. Boston continued to play good, consistent hockey for the balance of the regular season and finished at 37-30-13.

The playoff format for the NHL was completely wide open—there were no division or conference distinctions. The best 16 teams of a then 21-team league qualified and they were simply seeded 1 thru 16.

Boston was squarely in the middle of the playoff bracket, with their 87 points tying them with the Minnesota North Stars (today’s Dallas Stars) for the 8-seed. The Bruins had more wins than the North Stars (37-35) and a 2-1-1 record in head-to-head play. The first round series that was then best-of-five would begin in Boston Garden.

Minnesota had offensive problems, with 30-goal scorer Steve Payne being the only legitimate offensive threat. Defensively, they were similar to Boston, ranking fifth in goals allowed. The difference was in how the North Stars achieved their defensive success. While the Bruins relied on limiting shots, Minnesota had above-average goaltenders in Don Beaupre and Gillis Meloche.

That difference in the means of defensive success would define this series. Boston was able to take a 4-3 lead midway into the third period of Game 1, thanks to two goals from McNab. But Vachon was exposed to 40 shots. The North Stars tied the game in regulation, then won it 5-4 in overtime.

Vachon collapsed in the second period of Game 2, when a 3-3 tie turned into a 6-3 deficit and ended up as a 9-6 loss. Game 3 out in the Twin Cities went no better. A pace that continued to be fast and furious, with goalies exposed to constant attack, saw Vachon give up four goals in the first period. The Bruins never really got close in a 6-3 loss that ended the season.

The 1970s had seen Boston routinely reach at least the semifinals, often the Finals and occasionally win it all. The 1980s would be different. 1981 was the first of five first-round exits that would torment Beantown in this decade. They mixed in a conference finals trip in 1983, but it wasn’t until the end of the decade—1988—that this great hockey city tasted the Finals again.

1987 Boston Bruins: A Fourth Straight Playoff Disappointment

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After three straight first-round exits in the playoffs, the 1987 Boston Bruins were ready to make some changes. They did, and in time those changes bore good fruit. But in the short-term they weren’t able to get the franchise off its frustrating pattern of early postseason exits.

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Boston made their first big change shortly after getting swept out of the playoffs in 1986 by eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal. The Bruins traded Barry Pederson. Once a rising star, Pederson’s game had been dragged down by injuries. The Vancouver Canucks were willing to bet that Pederson could return to greatness and Boston sent him west.

In return, the Bruins got a 21-year-old kid named Cam Neely. His first year in Boston saw Neely lead the team in scoring with 36 goals. He made the Hall of Fame. He eventually went on to become team president, a job he still holds today after overseeing three trips to the Stanley Cup Finals and a title in 2011. It’s fair to say this trade worked out pretty well for the Bruins.

Rick Middleton bounced back after an injury-plagued ’86 and scored 31 goals. Tom McCarthy was a 30-goal scorer. Charlie Simmer nearly was, lighting the lamp 29 times. Keith Crowder and Steve Kasper gave the lineup some additional punch. After a 1986 that was marred by offensive mediocrity, these ’87 Bruins finished sixth in the league in goals scored.

None of these players were the team’s best though. That honor belonged to the great defenseman Ray Borque. The future Hall of Famer was a first-team All-Star. His 72 assists ranked second in the NHL only to the great Wayne Gretzky. He keyed a defense that also ranked sixth in the NHL.

Boston split their goaltending duties. Doug Keans was the veteran, with a mediocre 88.1% save rate. Bill Ranford was the up-and-comer, whose 89.1% save rate ranked sixth in the league.

Butch Goring, once a part of the New York Islanders dynasty earlier in the 1980s, was making the transition to coaching and he was in his second year behind the bench for the Bruins. Not for long. Thirteen game in, Goring was fired and Terry O’Reilly was brought on.

O’Reilly had been the enforcer for Bruin teams in the 1970s and this was a team that needed some fire. The final two games under Goring saw consecutive losses to the Buffalo Sabres by the combined score of 15-4. When those games happened the Sabres had already fired the legendary Scotty Bowman as their own head coach and were en route to the worst record in the league.

Boston got back on track with seven straight wins in early December, although they gave most of it back towards the end of the month with five straight losses. The Bruins reached the New Year at 16-16-4.

If nothing else, the playoff format of this era was exceptionally generous. The same 16 teams that qualify today made the postseason then—but with only 21 teams in the league, it was awfully hard to miss. The top four in each division qualified, meaning Boston needed to beat just one team in the five-team Adams Division. With Buffalo playing so poorly, there was little doubt which Adams team was going to be staying home in the spring.

And the Bruins started to play some good hockey again in January. A seven-game win streak included wins over all four divisional rivals—Hartford (today’s Carolina Hurricane), Montreal, Quebec (today’s Colorado Avalanche) and woeful Buffalo. The Boston record nudged up to 26-20-5 going into February.

Inconsistency reared its ugly head again and a six-game losing streak included defeats to all four divisional rivals. But the Bruins were able to recover sufficiently to finish the season with a winning record at 39-34-7. They were comfortably ahead of not just Buffalo, but also fourth-place Quebec who was submerged under .500.

Each of the previous three years had seen Boston taken out of the playoffs by their archrival from Montreal. With the postseason bracket being strictly division-based for the first two rounds, there was always an opportunity for revenge. 1987 saw another installment of Bruins-Canadiens in the first round.

Montreal wasn’t as good as they had been in their Cup run of 1986. With key scorers Mats Naslund, Bobby Smith and Guy Charbonneau having down years, the Canadiens offense was one of the worst in the league.

But they could play defense. Larry Robinson, 35-years-old and a veteran of the late 1970s Montreal Dynasty was still on hand. So was Chris Chelios, a rising star at defenseman that would be in the Hall of Fame. And the young goalie, a guy named Patrick Roy, was already an established star.

Keans got the start in net for Boston to open the series and it didn’t go well. The Bruins were quickly in a 3-0 hole and lost Game 1 by a 6-2 count. Ranford got the start in Game 2 and fell behind quickly 2-0.

Neely countered with two goals to tie the game. When the Canadiens went ahead 3-2, Neely completed his hat trick to tie it up again and force overtime. But Naslund got the last word and Montreal won 4-3.

If nothing else, the NHL had expanded its first round from best-of-five to best-of-seven for 1987, so Boston was guaranteed to get both of its home games for the middle part of the series.

In the third game, with Keans back in net, Middleton gave the Bruins their first lead of the series at 1-0. But Montreal scored three straight times. Middleton scored again. So did Borque and Neely

But Keans couldn’t hold down the previously woeful Canadien offense. Mike McPhee, a mostly non-descript forward, went off for the hat trick for Montreal. The result was a 5-4 loss.

Neely gave Boston a 2-1 lead in the second period Game 4 with a goal. Ranford had the chance to hold the lead. But the goalie-switching never produced a hot hand. The Canadiens scored twice in the second period to get the lead. McPhee sealed it with a third-period goal. The 4-2 loss ended another Boston season early.

Four straight first-round losses, each one to your most hated rivalry. Three of them ending in sweeps. There was no sugar-coating this era of Boston Bruins history. The only positive is that Neely was in town and better days were ahead—the franchise would make the Finals in 1988 and again in 1990.

1986 Boston Bruins: Another Early Exit

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The 1986 Boston Bruins were coming off two straight years of first-round playoff exits, one as a heavy favorite, the other as a noble underdog who came up just short. In either case, they were looking to get back on track. But a long season where simply making the postseason proved more difficult than normal set the stage for another early postseason dismissal.

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The Bruins were in transition at the goalie spot, with Pat Riggins and Doug Keans splitting the time throughout the regular season and play in net was often spotty. But the defensive unit as a whole was led by Hall of Famer Ray Borque, a 2nd-team All-Star, and they played good enough team defense to rank sixth in the NHL in goals allowed.

It was scoring that was the real problem. Barry Pederson returned after missing the 1985 season with injuries. He scored 29 goals, but wasn’t the same player he’d been in 1984. Rick Middleton, the team’s most consistent offensive threat through the 1980s was limited to 49 games this season.

There were still good scorers, with Keith Crowder getting 38 goals and Charlie Simmer lighting the lamp 36 times. Borque was a skilled passer, as was Ken Linseman. Each finished with 58 assists. But at the end of the day they only ranked 12th in a 21-team league for goals scored.

The NHL playoff format was straightforward and generous—the top four teams in each division qualified and played among each other for the first two rounds. There were five teams in the old Adams Division. Boston’s rivals were the Quebec Nordiques (today’s Colorado Avalanche), their ancient rival from Montreal, the Buffalo Sabres and the Hartford Whalers (today’s Carolina Hurricane). The purpose of the 80-game regular season was to be better than one of those teams.

That would prove challenging and not just for Boston. The Adams was the most balanced division in hockey for 1986, with all five teams being better than three eventual playoff qualifiers from other divisions. It was a five-team race from start to finish.

The Bruins came out of the gate strong, with an 8-2-1 start that included a win over the Canadiens. One of the losses was to Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champ. But Boston started to stagnate and by the New Year, the record was 17-13-7. More concerning was that in thirteen games against Adam Division rivals from November 5 to January 1 the Bruins record was 3-7-3

A 4-0 win over the Sabres on January 4 soothed some pain and Boston closed a strong January by sweeping two straight from the Whalers. Their record was up to 25-18-7. They were in hot pursuit of Quebec and Montreal for the division lead…and barely holding off Buffalo and Hartford.

The first nine days of February did not go well, with losses to the Canadiens, Sabres and Nordiques. By month’s end they were 30-26-7. Boston was still in third place, but they were a little closer to Buffalo and Hartford behind them than they were to Quebec and Montreal ahead.

Three straight losses in early March, at the hands of the Whalers, Nordiques and Canadiens meant Boston was in serious danger of missing the playoffs. That’s an unacceptable outcome in New England today and in the days when 16/21 teams made the postseason, it would be nothing short of public embarrassment.

On March 13, the Bruins stepped up and beat the Canadiens 3-2. The win was part of an important eleven-game stretch where they went 6-1-4 and got back on track. At the end of March, Boston had two straight games with Buffalo. The Sabres were in line to be the team left standing without a chair when the music stopped. The Bruins made sure of it with wins of 2-1 and 5-3. Buffalo was going home. Boston edged out Hartford for third place.

Now there was opportunity in the playoffs. Not just for advancement, but for revenge. Montreal was the opponent and the Canadiens had been the ones to knock the Bruins out each of the previous two years.

Montreal was led by Mats Naslund and his 43 goals. Bobby Smith and Kjell Dahl were each 30-plus goal scorers. The Canadiens had the sixth-best offense in the league.

 They could also defend. Larry Robinson, a part of the great Montreal dynasty in the late 1970s was 34-years-old, but the Hall of Famer could still play. So could veteran Bob Gainey.

Chris Chelios was young, but he was another future of Hall of Famer already making an impact. The same was true for Guy Charbonneau. And it was most certainly the case for goaltender Patrick Roy.

The first round was a best-of-five affair in 1986 and opened up at Montreal’s Bell Centre. After a scoreless first period, the Bruins gave up three consecutive goals in the second period and lost 3-1.

Head coach Butch Goring pulled the trigger on a change at goalie and called on 19-year-old Bill Ranford. The kid had the same second period problems as the veterans did, giving up two goals after a scoreless opening period. Boston lost 3-2.

Back home in the old Garden, the Bruins took an early 1-0 lead and led 3-2 going into the third period. Defensively, they limited Montreal to twenty shots on goal. But Gainey took over, scoring twice and ending Boston’s season with a 4-3 loss.

It was another tough-to-swallow playoff exit. Even the positive—the development of Ranford in goal—would prove to bite Boston in the rear. Ranford ended up in goal for Edmonton and led the Oilers to a Finals victories over the Bruins in 1990.

1986 was a great year for Boston sports. The Patriots had made the Super Bowl that January and would win the AFC East again the coming fall. The Red Sox won the American League pennant. Larry Bird’s Celtics were one of the great NBA champions of all-time. The Bruins weren’t able to get in on the fun.

1985 Boston Bruins: A Redemption Bid Never Gets Off The Ground

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The 1985 Boston Bruins came into the season looking for redemption. A strong 1984 regular season had flamed out with an immediate playoff collapse. The redemption bid never caught fire. The ’85 Bruins were hampered by injuries, played mediocre hockey and though they flirted with a playoff revival, it wasn’t enough.

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Barry Pederson was Boston’s rising star and best scorer. But early in this season he was diagnosed with a tumor in his shoulder. The tumor was benign, but shoulder surgery on an athlete is anything but. Pederson missed virtually all of this season and was never the same player when he returned.

Pete Peeters had given the Bruins goaltending that was always reliable and occasionally spectacular. Playing for Team Canada in international competition, he injured his ankle. When he came back from that, hand injuries and even neurological problems followed. Peeters ended up playing part-time, with Doug Keans getting the season’s most meaningful starts in net.

There was still talent in the Bruin lineup and it started with defenseman Ray Borque. A first-team All-Star in 1985, Borque passed for 66 assists and ended twenty goals from the back end. His fellow defenseman, Mike O’Connell, was a good passer who dished out 40 assists.

Rick Middleton led an offense that had four thirty-goal scorers, including Tom Fergus, Keith Crowder and Charlie Simms. Ken Linseman was a reliable offensive threat. But in an era when hockey games were higher-scoring than is the case today, the absence of Pederson was tough to overcome. Boston’s offense was a mediocre 12th in a 21-team NHL for goals scored.

With Borque and O’Connell keying the defense and Keans playing respectable hockey in net, Boston did finish sixth defensively. But it wasn’t enough to get them past mediocrity. They were narrowly over .500 for the entire season and finished with a record of 36-34-10. In their 24 games against key divisional rivals from Montreal, Buffalo and Quebec (today’s Colorado franchise), the Bruins went 8-12-4.

But the NHL format was even more generous then that it is today. The league was split into four divisions and the top four in each qualified for the playoffs. In the five-team Adams Division, Boston only needed to beat out one rival. And the Hartford Whalers (today’s Carolina Hurricanes) were that team. The Bruins consistently had the Whalers at arm’s length and Boston’s ultimate participation in the playoffs was never in serious doubt.

Their archrival, the Montreal Canadiens were the opponent. A Boston-Montreal battle, especially in the playoffs, is always heated. For the Bruins this one had the added element of revenge. It was the Canadiens, who followed up a mediocre fourth-place finish in 1984 by upsetting Boston in the first round of the playoffs. Now the Bruins had a chance to return the favor.

Montreal was only marginally better than Boston statistically, ranking 10th on offense and 4th on defense. Mats Naslund and Mario Tremblay were their leading scorers. The Canadiens had Hall of Famers at defenseman, but each at opposite ends of their career. Chris Chelios was still young, at 23. Larry Robinson, a key part of the late 1970s dynasty run was 33. Guy Carbonneau, a future Hall of Famer at center, had a modest 23 goals/34 assists line in 1985.

Boston went up to Bell Centre and came out firing, grabbing a 3-0 lead in Game 1. Montreal rallied to tie the game 3-3 by the third period, but Crowder and Middleton each scored to close out the 5-3 win. O’Connell finished with a goal and two assists. The Bruins had drawn first blood in a first round that was then a best-of-five affair.

After a scoreless first period in Game 2, the balanced Boston attack nudged them out to a 3-2 lead going into the third period. But the Canadiens played with desperation, scored three times and got their own 5-3 win to even the series.

Returning home to the old Boston Garden didn’t inspire the Bruins. They gave up three goals in the first nine minutes of Game 3. The offense never got any real rhythm and the leading shot-taker on a team with a number of good threats ended up being Dave Reid. The result was a 4-2 loss.

When Boston trailed the fourth game 4-1 after a period, they looked ready to go quietly into the offseason. But in a furious second period, they scored five times and pulled even 6-6. The goalies finally got things settled down in the third period. It was Linseman who delivered the game-winner, his second goal of the night sealing a 7-6 win.

After the offensive fireworks of Game 4, the goalies restored order in Game 5. Keans and Montreal counterpart Steve Penney were both locked in and the game was scoreless deep into the third period. Where the difference came is that the Canadiens were getting their best offensive players—Naslund and Tremblay consistent looks at the net. With 0:51 left, Naslund broke through with the goal that beat Boston 1-0.

It was a tough end to a disappointing season and if you’re looking for a happy ending down the line, you won’t find it here. Boston still had two more years of first-round playoff exits ahead of them, before finally getting out of the rut with their 1988 run to the Finals.

1984 Boston Bruins: High Hopes & Playoff Flameout

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The Boston Bruins came into the season looking to build on a strong 1983 run when they reached the conference finals. The New York Islanders, winners of four straight Stanley Cups, were starting to show signs of age and the moment was ripe for a new team to come out of the Wales Conference (the East). The 1984 Boston Bruins spent the regular season looking like that team, before a playoff collapse brought it to a sudden end.

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Rick Middleton was the leading Bruin scorer in 1984, scoring 47 goals and passing for 58 assists. Barry Pederson, a young offensive talent lit the lamp 39 times and his 77 assists were the third-most in the NHL. Tom Fergus added 25 goals/36 assists. On the back end, defenseman Mike O’Connell could move the puck, finishing with 42 assists.

But no Bruin was better than Ray Borque. The future Hall of Fame defenseman scored 31 goals, handed out 65 assists and was a 1st-team All-Star at season’s end. Borque and O’Connell keyed a defense that protected goalie Pete Peeters. Even though Peeters finished with a mediocre 87.6% save rate, Boston still ranked third in the league in goals allowed. The offense ended up seventh overall in what was then a 21-team NHL.

The Bruins played well early and got out to a 24-11-3 record by the time the calendar flipped to the New Year. The celebrated the arrival of 1984 on January 3 with a 4-2 win over the Islanders. Then Boston beat the dynasty from Long Island again two weeks later. The Bruins reached the beginning of February with a mark of 33-15-3.

Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton was the best team in the league this season and would ultimately win Gretzky his first Stanley Cup. Boston split two games with Edmonton in February. It was the highlight of a mediocre month that finished with the Bruins at 40-21-4. They were in a tough battle with the Buffalo Sabres for the Adams Division (the Northeast) and with the Islanders in the Wales Conference overall.

It took a furious closing stretch, but Boston got the top seed in the conference. They went 6-0-1 in their final seven games. The stretch included two wins over archrival Montreal and was enough to nip Buffalo by a point for first place in the division. The Bruins and Islanders finished tied with 104 points apiece, but Boston’s 2-0-1 head-to-head record would give them home ice in a conference finals rematch.

First, Boston had to get out of the Adams Division bracket. The NHL playoffs had a strict division-based format in 1984. Take the top four teams from each of the four divisions. Seed them 1 thru 4 and play the first two rounds amongst each other.

For the Bruins, that meant the Montreal Canadiens. Even though Montreal was the league’s premier franchise and had been the dynasty prior to the Islander Ascendancy, 1984 was not a vintage year up in Belle Centre. The Canadiens only finished with 75 points. Even though the great Guy Lafleur was still in tow and scoring 30 goals for the season, Montreal only ranked 18th in the NHL in goals allowed.

What wasn’t supposed to happen was for the Boston offense to completely disappear in what was then a best-of-five round. With all their offensive firepower, it was O’Connell who took eight of the team’s thirty shots in Game 1, a 2-1 loss. Two more uninspired performances followed, a 3-1 loss and then a 5-0 whitewashing on the road to complete the sweep.

It was an ignominious end to a nice season. Even worse than the immediate disappointment is that it started a trend. This was the first of four straight years that Boston would lose in the first round of the playoffs. Not until 1988 would they get out of the rut.

1983 Boston Bruins: A Strong Year Derailed By A Dynasty

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The 1983 Boston Bruins were seeking to get the franchise back to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1978. The ’83 Bruins had a great regular season and a good playoff run, but the dynasty down in Long Island proved too much to overcome.

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Goaltender Pete Peeters was the lynchpin of Boston’s success in 1983. Peeters saved 90.3% of his shots and won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie. He was the key to a defense that ranked 2nd in the 21-team NHL in goals allowed.

There was also a defenseman who wasn’t bad—future Hall of Famer Ray Borque, who scored 22 goals and passed for 52 assists. Borque, along with Mike O’Connell were both good passers who helped on both ends of the ice.

The offense was ultimately led by 21-year-old Barry Pederson. With 46 goals and 61 assists, Pederson had the fifth-most points of any player in the league. Rick Middleton scored 49 goals and added 47 assists. Keith Crowder had a 35/39 line.

But the offense didn’t stop there. Peter McNab was at 22/52. Mike Krushelnyski and Tom Fergus were each 20-plus goal scorers. All of these weapons, plus Borque and O’Connell on the back end, added up to the fifth-most prolific attack in the NHL.

The regular season didn’t start well, with a loss to hated Adams Division rival Montreal. But the Bruins bounced back to beat the Canadiens twice in December. They also knocked off the Philadelphia Flyers, who were on their way to winning the Patrick Division. Boston beat the New York Islanders, the three-time defending Cup champion. And the Bruins knocked off the Edmonton Oilers and a rising star named Wayne Gretzky.

It was enough to get them to a 23-9-6 record by the New Year and Boston just kept churning from there. They had a strong run through March that again saw wins over the Flyers, Islanders and Oilers. By season’s end, Boston’s record was 50-20-10. Their 110 points led the league, got them home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs and brought the President’s Trophy—given to the top regular season team—to Beantown.

The NHL playoffs were strictly division-based. You took the top four teams in each of the four divisions, seeded them 1 thru 4 and they played amongst each other. Boston’s Adams Division playoff run would start against the Quebec Nordiques (today’s Colorado Avalanche).

Quebec had potent scorers. Michael Goulet lit the lamp 57 times. The Stastny brothers—Peter, Anton and Marian—averaged nearly forty goals apiece. The Nordique attack was more potent than Boston’s, ranking third in the league. But the defense was a problem, ranking just 16th and goalie Dan Bouchard not being in Peeters’ class.

But Bouchard would play well in this series. Even though Boston outshot Quebec 37-21 and 37-18 in the first two games, the Bruins had to fight to escape. It took a couple goals from O’Connell and an overtime goal from Pederson to win Game 1, 4-3. And they trailed 2-1 early in the third period of Game 2, before the shot assault finally wore Bouchard down and Boston won 4-2.

The first round was a best-of-five affair in 1983, so the Bruins went on the road with a chance to clinch in Game 3. But Bouchard continued to hang tough and a 2-1 loss extended the series. Quebec then came out attacking in Game 4 and outshot the B’s 39-15. But Peeters showed why he was the Vezina Trophy winner, delivering a clutch effort and winning a 2-1 game of his own. Boston was moving on to the Division Finals.

Montreal was supposed to be waiting here, but the Canadiens had been swept out of the playoffs by the Buffalo Sabres. Buffalo was coached by the great Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman and had 30-plus goal scorers in Gilbert Perreault and Tony McKegney. The Sabres had gone 38-29-13 in the regular season and were sixth in the league defensively.

Boston jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the series opener, but then Buffalo hammered Peeters for six straight goals and the result was a 7-4 loss. The goalie came back strong in Game 2 with 37 saves and keying a 5-3 win that evened the series.

Game 3 was tied 3-3 in the final minutes when a late Buffalo goal handed Boston another defeat. Game 4 was close to a must-win and the Bruins clung to a 3-2 lead in the third period. The passing of Middleton took over. He assisted on three consecutive goals that broke the game open and the 6-2 win reclaimed home ice for Boston.

Middleton came out in Game 5 with two goals and an assist. Pederson had two assists and a goal. Crowder and Krushelnyski each lit the lamp. And that was all in the first period. Boston was up 5-0 by the first intermission and the game ended at 9-0.

Smelling a clinch, the Bruins went on the road and grabbed the first two goals of Game 6. But the Sabres clawed back to tie the game 3-3 with eleven minutes left and then scored two more times down the stretch. We were going to a Game 7 at the Garden.

Boston trailed 2-0 into the second period. Middleton fed Pederson for a goal that got the Bruins back in the game. Then a proud veteran, Brad Park, a Hall of Famer in the last legs of his career, scored the tying goal. It went to overtime. And Park delivered one more time, with the goal that won the game 3-2.

The conference finals were at hand and the Islanders had again come out of the Patrick Division bracket. Boston would have to dethrone the dynasty.

Mike Bossy led the way for the Isles as a 60-goal scorer. Bryan Trottier and John Tonelli each cleared the 30-goal threshold. But New York didn’t have Boston’s depth on offense, ranking just 15th in the NHL in goals scored. What they could do was defend. The Isles had the league’s stingiest defense and goalie Billy Smith was a proven postseason winner.

Smith showed his mettle in Game 1. The Bruins hit him with 32 shots in a fast-paced game, but lost 5-2. They maintained the pace in the second game and held a 2-1 lead late in the second period. With Peeters holding his own, Boston broke it open. Pederson scored twice off of feeds from Middleton and Boston evened the series with a 4-1 win.

The middle games down at Nassau Coliseum followed the same script. In both cases, the game was tight early in the third period, with the Bruins trailing by a goal. In both cases, Peeters and the defense collapsed. Boston lost both games, by scores of 7-3 and 8-3.

Peeters redeemed himself back in the Garden for Game 5. He faced 45 shots, stopped 44 and a balanced offense that saw ten Boston players get a point gave them a 5-1 win. Now they just needed to find a way to get one road win and get another Game 7 back at home.

No such luck. The offenses of both teams were rolling early, and the Islanders led 4-3 early in the second period. Then Bossy unloaded. He scored three second-period goals, lit the lamp four times on the night and Boston fell 8-4. The playoff run was over.

It was still a strong year for the Bruins in 1983 and with the Celtics flaming out surprisingly early in the playoffs, the Red Sox on a rebuilding year and the Patriots playing .500 ball, it was the Bruins who led the way in this great sports city for 1983.

But from the perspective of history, 1983 marks an end point. Boston had been a consistent contender and making at least some dent in the playoffs. That temporarily stopped after this year. Over the next four seasons, Boston failed to win a series in the postseason. Not until 1988 did they get out of the rut and return to the Finals.

1993 Los Angeles Kings: The Long-Awaited Trip To The Finals

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For over twenty years of existence, the Los Angeles Kings had been a non-factor. After their founding in 1968, they had never made it past the second of the playoffs. In 1989, the franchise made a splash for the ages when they acquired Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers. But even after four years with the greatest player in NHL history, the Kings had yet to reach a conference finals. The 1993 Los Angeles Kings took that next step and finally reached the Stanley Cup Finals.

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Gretzky was the big name, although at age 32 he was starting to slow down a bit and injuries limited him to 45 games in the regular season. The team’s best player was Luc Robitaille, a future of Hall of Famer himself, who scored 63 goals and was a 1st-team All-Star.

More Hall of Fame talent was on the back end, with Rob Blake and Paul Coffey as defenseman. They combined for 92 assists. Jari Kurri, another great veteran of the Edmonton dynasty, scored 27 goals and passed for 60 assists. Tony Granato lit the lamp 37 times and Mike Donnelly added 29 more goals.

It added up to a potent offense, fifth-best in the league. The problem was keeping pucks out of the net. Kelly Hrudey was an average goaltender and the Kings were 21st in the NHL in goals allowed.

After a nice 12-4-2 start to the regular season, Los Angeles gradually fell back to the middle. A six-week stretch starting in mid-January saw them struggle to a 5-13-2 mark. They were sub-.500 on March 1, but a nice closing push got them on track for the playoffs. The final record was 39-35-10, good for third place in the Pacific Division.

The NHL playoffs were seeded strictly by division, even more so than today. The top four from each division made it and played amongst themselves for a spot in the conference finals with no wild-card crossovers. Los Angeles would draw Calgary in the opening round.

The Flames were a steady contender in this era, including winning the 1989 Stanley Cup. They were led by Hall of Fame center Joe Nieuwendyk and veteran Hall of Fame players in defenseman Al MacInnis and 34-year-old Sergei Makarov. A 21-year-old center in Rob Reichel was the top scorer with 40 goals, while Theoren Fleury was a terrific scorer and passer.

In short, Calgary was a lot like Los Angeles—a roster of veteran Hall of Famers combined with up-and-comers who could score. And the Flames were better defensively, ranking 9th in the league and having Mike Vernon in goal.

But the Kings struck first on the road, getting two goals from Jimmy Carson in a 6-3 win. The defensive woes came back to haunt in Game 2, a 9-4 loss and again in Game 3 as the Flames won 5-2.

The pressure was on for Game 4 and LA turned up the defensive intensity. A change in goalie put Robb Stauber in net and he stopped 28/29 shots. Los Angeles led 2-1 late and an empty-net goal sealed the series-tying win.

LA’s offense returned to form for the pivotal Game 5 and their stars made the first big mark of the series. Robitaille scored twice, Gretzky handed out three assists and the Kings rang up nine goals. Stauber faced 44 shots and stopped 40 in the 9-4 win.

Calgary came out swinging in Game 6, and hit Stauber shots. The backup goalie didn’t play well, and coughed up six goals. But the Los Angeles offense was in high gear and benefitting from a Calgary decision to bench Vernon in favor of Jeff Reese. With just 23 shots, the Kings ripped off another nine-goal performance, with a combined five assists from Kurri and Gretzky. The 9-6 win sent them to the Division Finals.

Vancouver was the top seed in the Pacific bracket, ranking in the top five both offensively and defensively. Pavel Bure was an electric scorer, ringing up 60 goals and 50 assists during the regular season. Geoff Courtnall, Terry Linden and Peter Nedved were all 30-plus goal scorers, while Kirk McLean provided competent goaltending.

Los Angeles looked outmatched in the series opener, outshot 42-27 and losing 5-2. But they came back strong in Game 2. Three first-period goals set the tone and with a 4-3 lead late, Gretzky got a key goal to help secure the 6-3 win.

The series came south to LA and Game 3 was scoreless after one period and tied 2-2 going into third. Then the Los Angeles stars unloaded. Robitaille, Kurri and Gretzky all scored in the final period and the result was a 7-4 win. The momentum continued in the very early part of Game 4, with a couple Gretzky assists putting the Kings up 2-1.

But early in the second period, the defense came apart at the seams. The 7-2 loss sent the series back to Vancouver all tied up.

Hrudey was back in net and played his best game of the postseason in the crunch spot of a road Game 5. He faced 39 shots, stopped 36 and Los Angeles eventually pulled out a 4-3 win on a Gary Shuchuk goal in the second overtime.

Again at home in Game 6 with a chance to clinch, the Kings played aggressively. They attacked with 50 shots and while McLean held up reasonably well, the dominance in the flow of play was too much to hold off. Five different players scored for LA. Gretzky had two assists and a goal. The 5-3 win sent Los Angeles to a long-awaited conference finals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were in the Western Conference at this time and like Los Angeles, the Maple Leafs had finished in third place during the regular season. After knocking off Detroit, Toronto got a break when Chicago—the best team in the West—lost in the first round and the Maple Leafs cashed in the break.

Toronto was a mirror image of Los Angeles in that the Leafs were not very good offensively—16th in a 24-team league. But they could defend. Head coach Pat Burns would later lead the 2003 New Jersey Devils to a Stanley Cup based primarily on defense. Felix Potvin was a good 21-year-old goaltender. And their 44-29-11 record in the regular season gave Toronto home ice advantage in this series.

Los Angeles could not solve the Leaf defense in Game 1, only taking 29 shots and losing 4-1. They were similarly handcuffed in Game 2, but this time the maligned Kings defense tightened up its own game. LA pulled out a 3-2 win, with Gretzky feeding Tomas Sandstrom a big third period goal.

The Kings played more good defense back home and led the third game 3-2 into the third period. Dave Taylor scored a shorthanded goal for LA to seal the 4-2 win and the series lead.

Los Angeles’ team defense continued to be good in Game 4 at home and Game 5 back in Toronto. But Hrudey did not play well in the fourth game against a limited number of shots and the 4-2 loss tied in the series. And back in Toronto, even hitting Potvin with 43 shots wasn’t enough in a 3-2 loss.

It was another Game 6 at the Los Angeles Forum and this time the Kings were fighting for their lives. Robatille had three assists and LA built a 5-3 lead into the third period. But with Toronto’s Wendell Clark going for a hat trick, the lead disappeared and the game went to overtime. The Robatille-Gretzky combo stepped up early in the extra session, producing the goal that set up a Game 7.

The seventh game would be the kind of classic that the NHL playoffs produce more consistently than any other sport. Gretzky scored early for a 1-0 lead. After two Toronto goals, Gretzky tied the game 2-2. With Los Angeles holding to a 4-3 lead and the clock approaching the three-minute mark, Gretzky completed the hat trick. The last goal was needed insurance in a 5-4 win. The Kings’ great players had finally solved Potvin with all the money on the table.

Montreal was waiting in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Canadiens were the league’s great dynasty, having won four straight Cups in the late 1970s and making a return to the top in 1986. The ’93 Canadiens were not loaded with offensive talent, although the quartet of Vincent Damphousse, Kirk Muller, Brian Bellows and Stephan Lebeau gave them a respectable attack.

What really set Montreal apart was the great goaltending of Patrick Roy. The 27-year-old’s Hall of Fame trajectory was already well-established and he had won the Conn Smythe Award at the tender age of 20 during the Canadiens’ last Cup run.

But when the Finals opened at Montreal’s historic Bell Centre, it was Kelly Hrudey that stole the show. He shut down the Canadiens, while Robatille scored twice, Gretzky had three assists and the Kings grabbed a 4-1 win.

The cruelty of playoff hockey would now turn on Los Angeles. Over the next three games, the Kings played well and competitively. Hrudey was good, but Roy was a little bit better and Montreal scored the key goal when they had to. All three games went to overtime. And LA lost all three.

Game 5 was tied 1-1 early in the second period, but the Los Angeles defense was being strangled. They only mustered 19 shots. That’s not enough against anyone and especially not against an all-time great like Roy. The Canadiens gradually pulled away to a 4-1 win and the series was over.

It had still been an outstanding postseason run for the Kings. Gretzky scored 15 goals and passed for 25 assists in the 24 playoff games. Robatille and Kurri combined for 18 more goals. Sandstrom was an unlikely hero with 17 assists. And Hrudey’s 88.7% save rate in the playoffs was right on track with his regular season—a good showing, giving the elevated competition he faced each night.

Alas, this 1993 run was the last one the city of Los Angeles would see for a while. The Kings collapsed and missed the playoffs the next four years. Gretzky was moved out in 1996. It wasn’t until the three-year stretch of 2012-2014 when the franchise won two Stanley Cups, that they again made an impact on the league. But those ’93 LA Kings did something special and finally put hockey on the map in SoCal.

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 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.

1991 Boston Bruins: A Conference Finals Run

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The Boston Bruins had won the Wales Conference (the East) two of the previous three years, reaching the Finals in 1988 and 1990. Both times, the dreams of a Stanley Cup ended at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers. The 1991 team was cut of a similar mold, rolling up a big regular season and a nice playoff run, before ultimately coming up short, this time in the conference finals.

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A pair of Hall of Fame players keyed the 1991 Boston Bruins. Ray Borque was one of the great defenseman of all-time and he finished with 73 assists in ‘91. Cam Neeley scored 51 goals and handed out 40 more assists. These two greats were supplemented by Craig Janney (26 goals/66 assists) and 30-plus goal scorers in Ken Hodge and Dave Christian.

Andy Moog was one of the league’s better goaltenders, with an 89.6% save rate—a figure much bettern in the NHL world of 1991 than it would be today. He anchored the seventh-best defense in the league, while the offense ranked fifth in goals scorer.

Boston opened the season with four straight wins and was 20-12-8 at the New Year. Over January and February, they won three head-to-head battles with the archrival Montreal Canadiens. They also grabbed a 5-4 ovetime win over Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings and split a pair with the rising force in the East, Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Bruins closed the season with a record of 44-24-12, the best in the Wales Conference by a comfortable eleven points. They had won five of seven games against Montreal, their top rival in the old Adams Division. Boston was primed for the playoffs.

Similar to today, the playoff format in 1991 was division-based, but even stricter—you simply took the top four teams in all four divisions and they played amongst themselves for the first two rounds. The Bruins opened with the Hartford Whales (today’s Carolina Hurricanes).

The Whalers had a couple of good players—most notably Hall of Fame center Ron Francis, who passed for 55 assists. They also had a 40-plus goal scorer in Pat Veerbek. But there was little depth—the offense as a whole ranked 19th in a 21-team league and the defense was only marginally better at 13th.

When Boston scored their first goal 23 seconds into Game 1, it looked like the rout was on. But the Bruins came apart, Moog was completely outplayed by Hartford counterpart Peter Sidorkiewicz and the result was a 5-2 loss. When they trailed 3-2 after the first two periods of Game 2, things looked bleak.

Neely stepped up and completed a hat trick with two goals on the third period, both off assists from Janney. Boston won 4-3. They went south to Hartford and used another third-period explosion ito win Game 3, scoring four times to break open a 2-2 game.

With a 2-1 series lead, the Bruins relaxed and in the first six minutes of Game 4, dug themselves a 3-0 hole. They rallied again, but lost 4-3. The trend of third-period dominance hit its peak back at the Garden in Game 5. Trailing 1-0 after two periods, Boston had the lead within 90 seconds and unloaded for six goals. Neely scored twice, Janney handed out three assists and the Bruins had control of the series.

Moog made sure it stood up. Even though Hartford controlled the flow of Game 6, doubling Boston in shots 32-16, the Bruin goaltender delivered in a 3-1 win. Boston was moving onto the Division Finals.

Montreal was waiting. In spite of the Bruins’ regular season control of this series, the Canadiens had a rich history of postseason success with a lot of it at Boston’s expense. Montreal also had a goaltender more than capable of making that continue in 1991—Patrick Roy, who would be one of the great netminders of all-time, was 25-years-old and he led the second-best defense in the NHL.

The offense was not explosive, with only 30-goal scorer in Stephane Richer. But they were balanced and finished ninth in the league in goals scorer.

Each of the first two games to open the series at the Garden were right. Neely got to Roy twice in Game 1 and that was enough for a 2-1 win. Both goalies stood up against a shot barrage in Game 2, but Montreal got even with 4-3 overtime win.

Game 3 in Montreal went along the same lines and was tied 2-2 in the closing two minutes. Ken Hodge only last four years in the NHL. But this was his best year and this game was his biggest moment—he scored the game-winner with 1:21 left to deliver the win. Moog played poorly in Game 4 and the 6-2 loss sent another series back to Boston for a pivotal Game 5.

In a big spot, Neely was the man again, beating Roy for a hat trick that was the difference in a 4-1 win. Boston clung to a 2-1 lead late in Game 6 and was looking to close it out, when Montreal added to its legacy of comebacks—they tied the game with four minutes to go and won it in overtime. For Boston fans with long memories (which is basically all of us), it was shades of 1979, albeit with stakes not quite as high.

Moog’s finest hour came in Game 7. Montreal got off 36 shots to Boston’s 33, but Moog was just a little bit better than the great Roy. The 2-1 win sent the Bruins to the conference finals.

For two more games, the Stanley Cup dream continued to burn bright in New England, as Boston grabbed a 2-0 series lead over Pittsburgh. But the series changed drasticallyupon getting to the Steel City. The Bruin defense couldn’t get Lemieux off the puck, nor could they generate any thing offensively. The Penguins coasted to a pair of 4-1 wins. There was no Game 5 magic at the Garden in this series—Moog was chased in a 7-2 loss and Pittsburgh closed the series in Game 6.

Boston’s success from 1988-91 had come in spite of coaching turnover. Terry O’Reilly had been the coach of the 1988 team, while Mike Milbury, current NBC Sports Network studio analyst, coached the 1990 team and this 1991 edition. Milbury was out after this year, but continuing the coaching carousel didn’t work this time. It would be twenty years before the Bruins made it back to the Finals, this time with Neely in the role of team president.

A Finals Run For The 1990 Boston Bruins

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The 1990 Boston Bruins were a talented team under a first-year head coach in Mike Milbury. The Bruins lived up to their potential, making their second Stanley Cup Finals in three years. Unfortunately, they played in The Age of Edmonton and lost to the Oilers for the second time.

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Milbury replaced Terry O’Reilly, who had taken to the team to the Finals in 1988. No matter who was coaching, the success was built around two great players. Defenseman Ray Borque, one of the best of all-time, passed for 65 assists in 1990. Forward Cam Neely, a future Hall of Famer himself, scored 55 goals. The Bruins got quality goaltending from Andy Moog and steady support play from Craig Janney, Bob Carpenter and Bob Sweeney.

Boston got off to a good start, keyed by a 7-0-1 stretch in November that included wins over Edmonton, Los Angeles (where Wayne Gretzky now resided) and Buffalo (a fellow contender in the East). But the Bruins gave that ground back in December when they lost six of seven in what should have been a manageable portion of the schedule. They reached the New Year with a record of 21-15-3.

A five-game win streak to kick off January got them back in gear and Boston played consistent hockey the rest of the way. The Bruins finished the season with a record of 46-25-9, won the President’s Trophy for the best regular season record and had home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Hartford Whalers (today’s Carolina Hurricanes were up first) and had a good defense, along with some offensive firepower led by Pat Veerbeck and Ron Francis. The Whalers took two of the first three games and when they took a 5-2 lead after two periods in Game 4, the outlook for Boston looked bleak.

Their backs to the wall, the Bruins attacked and scored four goals in the third period. Two of them were from Dave Poulin, including the game-winner with 1:44 to play and the 6-5 win evened up the series.

Boston had been having goaltending problems through the first part of this series, and for some reason were giving backup goalie Reggie Lemelin equal time with Moog in an effort to find the hottest possible hand. Milbury stuck with Moog the rest of the way and it turned the tide. Boston scraped out a 3-2 win in Game 5 and even though they lost in overtime in Game 6, Moog came home for Game 7 and stopped 27/28 shots in a 3-1 win.

An ancient rival in the Montreal Canadiens was up in the second round. Montreal had a nicely balanced lineup, led by Hall of Fame defenseman Chris Chelios. But the real reason to fear the Canadiens was a goalie named Patrick Roy, who led his team to the fourth-best record in the NHL.

Instead, Moog would enjoy a career highlight in outplaying one of the great goalies of all-time. Boston won the opener 1-0, and then nailed Roy for 11 goals over the next two games, wins of 5-4 (OT) and 6-3. Even though the Bruins lost Game 4, they returned to the Garden in Game 5 and in a game tied 1-1 after two periods, got the lead on a goal by Glen Wesley. Neely sealed the 3-1 win late with a empty-net goal.

After the seven-game war against Hartford and the grudge battle with Montreal, the conference finals against the Washington Capitals was a bit anticlimactic. The Caps’ postseason history is checkered, to say the least and in 1990 they were a sub-.500 team. Beyond Dino Ciccarelli and Geoff Courtnall’s ability to light the lamp, these Caps didn’t have much.

It took a couple periods for Boston to assert themselves. But trailing 3-2 in the opener, Poulin again was a sparkplug. He scored two goals to key the 5-3 win. Moog took over from there, allowing only three goals in the next three games as the Bruins closed out a sweep.
The rematch of the 1988 Cup Finals with Edmonton was on hand, but the fact the Oilers no longer had Gretzky was no small difference. There was real hope in New England that the Bruins’ year had finally arrived. I still remember being at a friend’s house to watch Game 1…a game that went on interminably, into triple-overtime, before Edmonton won it.

The Oiler defense never let Boston get untracked. The Bruins were able to fight out a 2-1 win in Game 3, but they only scored eight goals in five games and it was never a series. A strong season ended with disappointment.

Milbury made it back to the conference finals in 1991 before losing to Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was his final season as coach and the franchise’s long pursuit of a Stanley Cup continued until 2011, when Neely, now club president, finally put together the team that gave a hockey-crazed region its long-awaited Cup.

Read About The 1980s Stanley Cup Champions

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The 1980s was the Dynasty Decade in NHL history. The start of the decade saw the ascendancy of the New York Islanders, who won four straight Stanley Cups. At the same time, the Edmonton Oilers had a young talent by the name of Wayne Gretzky taking the league by storm and winning Hart Trophies. By the middle of the decade, Gretzky’s Oilers had supplanted by the Islanders. Edmonton won four Cups in five years.

This download contains ten articles that tell the story of the 1980s Stanley Cup champions. You’ll read about each individual season in the Islander & Gretzky Dynasties. Read about the most dominant team each produced—like 1981 for New York or a devastating playoff run for Edmonton in 1985. Or on the other end of the spectrum, there were years like 1982 when the Islanders barely survived. And by decade’s end, Edmonton stunned the entire sports world when they traded Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings.

They’re all here—from Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier to Mark Messier and Juri Karri. From Billy Smith to Grant Fuhr. And there was also the temporary return of the league’s greatest dynasty. The Montreal Canadiens, who had reigned as recently as 1976-79, won a Cup in 1986 with a great young goalie in Patrick Roy.

Ironically, the Dynasty Decade ended with a quintessential outlier—the Calgary Flames won the 1989 Stanley Cup in the first year that Gretzky was gone from Edmonton. It signaled the gradual start of a new era with significantly more parity, the era we know in the NHL today.

You’ll read about all the key players on each individual championship team. Learn about how their regular season unfolded and learn about the caliber of players and teams they defeated in the playoffs.

The Dynasty Decade is a package of ten articles that exist individually on TheSportsNotebook.com, and have been edited for this compilation. For readers that lived through the 1980s, it’s a great way to stir old memories. For younger readers, it’s a terrific primer course on hockey during an era when ruling dynasties were the order of the day.

DOWNLOAD DYNASTY DECADE: THE STORY OF THE 1980s STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS TODAY

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