Leetch scores four points in what Mark Messier calls "one of the single greatest playoff performances I've seen in my career."
Meanwhile, Joisey wins 2-0 at the Swamp to move a game away from eliminating the Beaneaters and setting up the series we've all been waiting 11 years for.
WAS 2 0 1--3
NYR 3 0 1--4
(Rangers win series, 4-1)
Goals: WAS--Hatcher, S. Anderson, Cote; NYR--Graves 2, Tikkanen, Leetch.
Assists: WAS--Ridley 2, Khristisch, Hunter, Miller; NYR--Leetch 3, Zubov 2,
Anderson, Messier. Goalies: WAS--Beaupre (11 shots-8 saves), Tabaracci
(25-24); NYR--Richter (31-28). Power plays: WAS-- 0 of 5; NYR--0 of 4.
(As referenced above, I mentioned this game in early February in a post to the mailing list that, really, sent me off on this 5YA tangent. Here's that post:
Stop, you're gonna make me cry again....
One tradition my brother and I have when we go to Ranger games is to go down to section 232 after the game, and sit under the Banner for a minute or two -- reflect a little on the big season, offer up a little prayer of thanksgiving, that kind of thing.
Monday, bored to tears, disgusted, angry, annoyed, and pretty much shocked by what we saw, we swung down there, and just sat there for a minute thinking exactly that, Anthony -- it's been five long years. May not seem like much, especially compared to 54, but man -- all I could say (and I said it a few times) was, "******, five years is a ******* eternity..."
Hard to believe.
Memories...hmm...so many.
------
Y'know, I'm gonna volunteer myself, if no one has any objection, to try out a "This Day in 1994" thing for down the stretch. It might not be every day, but I'll try to pop it up as often as possible...any objections? Won't be anything long (unless it's one that I feel like making personal)...I could do it to the "extra" list if it would be better that way...and if a miracle happens and this team becomes competitive again, I'll tone it down a bit...
-----
Meanwhile...1994.
Besides the obvious (crying like a baby on June 14, and jumping around screaming on May 27), one that comes back is May 9, Game 5 of the Capitals series. It was the end of my freshman year in college, and it was a rough personal time because of some things going on with a couple of friends at home. I was burned out by a longshot, but had two more things to do, both for the same music class: Study for the next day's final, and write a three-page paper on some music excerpt or other. I was pounding out the paper on the night of the fifth game, just sort of hoping it would be a blowout either way, so I wouldn't have to sit there with the radio on as I tried to concentrate on my work.
No luck, of course. It was a close game the whole way, and the second period ended with it a 3-2 contest. I looked at the computer screen. Just short of the two-full-page mark. I glanced around, as if my professor might be watching through the walls from across the campus. I 'select'ed 'all' and changed the font and size. Two-and-a-half pages.
I grabbed my wallet.
There was a little place in the student center called "The Pluck." Little chicken-wing place. And they were at the time the only place on campus (barring a couple of out-of-the-way dorms) that had cable. I had camped out there for the first three games of the Islander series, and for Game 3 against the Caps. For some reason, I still can't eat wings without thinking of posting back-to-back 6-0 scores on Hextall and McLennan.
I bought myself a six-pack of wings (not the three-alarm, thank you, but hot...). Sat down at an empty table near a TV.
Just in time for Sylvain freakin' Cote to score (:27) and tie the freakin' game.
Damn.
It stayed that way for most of the third, and all I could think of was that damn paper I'd left behind, almost finished. The agita of overtime with a curse hanging over our heads was bad enough. That I needed to finish that damn thing and maybe study a little bit, well, that was there too. There would be no more room to select all and expand. I needed to write and read, and for that I needed time. But I'd committed (I should have been committed, all right). I was there till it ended.
Fortunately, Sergei Zubov and Brian Leetch (two DEFENSEMEN!) found themselves on a 2-on-1 with just under four minutes left. Zubov sent Leetch in alone from the top of the circle. Leetch pounded it past Rick Tabaracci.
That win, for me, was one of the biggest. They had found so many ways to blow it in the second round over the past decade that I'd been watching tha t even blowing a 3-0 lead in games seemed possible. They were on to the semis for the first time since 1986, and it seemed that from there, anything could happen. It was a new start. The preliminaries were out of the way, it was time for Rangers-Devils, and the season was underway for real.
I got a B+ in the class. All things considered, I was happy.
----------
Other memories of 1993-94 (some I guess I'll touch on more on their "anniversaries"...):
--Miss the net, Tony, miss the net! Didn't it seem like every time you looked up, Amonte was shooting high and wide? Hell, he missed on a penalty shot in LA, Jan. 27, in overtime (Granato hopped off the bench with six seconds left to prevent a breakaway, creating the penalty-shot situation -- Messier then somehow scored the gamewinner after winning the faceoff and chasing down a Zubov dump-in).
--The Montreal comeback, Oct. 24. Kind of innocent, but the Rangers tied it 3-3 at the Garden in the last minute on an Adam Graves deflection of a Zubov shot. They wouldn't lose again until Nov. 27.
--Peter Andersson wins one for the Aces, March 2 vs. Quebec. I liked Andersson; can't tell you why. When he scored, he pointed up to his buds in the Black Aces box. I kept the picture and the clip from the News on my dorm room wall until I left in May.
--Deadline day. Mike Gartner goes, Craig MacTavish comes. Oh yeah, there was some other stuff, too...
--The Kovalev eternity shift, Feb. 23. I was with Alex: didn't seem like punishment to me.
--The countdown to 50 for Adam -- another thing I kept on the dorm wall.
--I'm big on hanging things on the wall. Even back at home, in 1990 I had drawn out four sweaters on two pieces of paper. One one I put the numbers 10 and 18, and the names "Miller" and "Ridley." On the other, I put the numbers 18 and 28, and the names "Granato" and "Sandstrom." They were in honor of the worst trades, I'd thought at the time, made by the last two GMs, and I promised they'd stay up on my bedroom wall until the Rangers won the Stanley Cup.
On June 17, 1994, after watching the parade, I went back up to my room and took them down.
I still have them, in a pile somewhere. They're buried. Kinda like the Curse.
Mike Fornabaio -- mef17@oocities.com
Click here for the next date -- May 11 -- or, click here to return to the 5YA index