The Canucks hit four posts. The Rangers score one per period, get screwed out of a goal, and finally protect a last-minute lead to win 3-1. The series was tied going out to Vancouver.
Doug Lidster (Doug Lidster?) opens the scoring, crashing the net and pounding the puck past Kirk McLean at 6:22. Sergio Momesso (as we've mentioned before, remember that name) evens it at 14:04 of the first.
In the second comes, perhaps, Gartner-trade apologists' best ammunition.
A minute into an Adam Graves minor for tripping Dave Babych, Mark Messier, fresh off the bench, breaks up a Trevor Linden cross-point pass. Messier chips it out ahead, chasing it all the way down the middle of the ice, with Jeff Brown chasing him. It chips to the front of the net, finally, and Kirk McLean pokes it away from Messier, and it rolls behind the net, with Messier's momentum carrying him back there with it.
Much (including this space)-maligned Glenn Anderson, though, follows the whole way. He outskates Jyrki Lumme to the front of the net, stays neatly out of the crease (it wouldn't have mattered, of course, because this is pre-obligatory crease replay), and bangs home Messier's backhand pass to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead.
It was almost 3-1 in the third with about three minutes to go. Esa Tikkanen, foreshades of a play three years later (2YA off the camera), guns a shot from the left-wing circle that goes off McLean's catching glove and...
Off the elbow between the crossbar and the left post? Off the curved inside back bar of the net, a goal?
From one angle, it appears the former (the puck never seems to disappear, as it probably should were it in). From another angle, it appears the latter (flashbulbs and awkward camera angles make it hard to say with absolute certainty, but it seems to tuck itself briefly into the corner of the net). In the era before video replay was refined to its current state (say what you will about the crease rule, replay's pretty good now for puck-in-the-net), the most crucial angle -- directly over the goal line -- isn't there. In its absence, referee Bill McCreary and any and all video replay judges rule the former. It remains 2-1.
It stays that way into the final minute, when the Rangers have been at their worst this playoff season, giving away three one-goal leads in their last eight last minutes.
In the last 10 seconds, it almost became 4-for-9.
Martin Gelinas is stoned on a wide-open redirection off a pass from Brown in the right corner. The puck goes across to the other boards, where Leetch recovers the puck, and flings it all the way down the ice. It goes in with three-plus seconds left on the clock to clinch the win.
Game 3 is Thursday, June 4 at Pacific Coliseum.
From the notebook -- Sergei Zubov injures his rib cage on a hard hit by Gelinas with about five minutes remaining in the third. He will be forced to miss Game 3. . . . Kevin Lowe finally has to miss time because of the shoulder he separated late in the first overtime of Game 7 of the Devils series. Alexander Karpovtsev replaces him in the lineup, but after being on the ice when Vancouver scores its goal, barely plays again. . . . Rangers assistant coach Dick Todd takes a puck off of Pavel Bure's skate and off the side of his head near his left eye, with 30 seconds left in the first period. Todd will take 15 stitches to close the cut, but he's a hockey coach -- he returns 4:27 into the second. . . . Midway through the third, J.D. would say the series should be best-of-9 -- "it's so good," Davidson says. In hindsight, I'm surprised the hockey curse gods didn't think of this.
VAN 1 0 0--1
NYR 1 1 1--3
(Series tied, 1-1)
First period -- 1, New York, Lidster 1, 6:22. 2, Vancouver, Momesso 3
(Ronning, Hedican), 14:04. Penalties -- Craven, Van (tripping), 2:03.
Lidster, NY
(interference), 7:44. Hunter, Van, misconduct, 15:26. Anderson, NY
(interference), 16:55.
Second period -- 3, New York, Anderson 2 (Messier), 11:42 (sh).
Penalties -- Brown, Van (hooking), 4:27. Matteau, NY (hooking), 6:12. Graves, NY
(tripping), 10:35. Antoski, Van (roughing), 13:58. Tikkanen, NY (goalie interference), 17:08.
Third period -- 4, New York, Leetch 7, 19:56 (en). Penalties -- Lidster,
NY (interference), 1:43. Diduck, Van (high-sticking), 4:32; Kovalev, NY
(high-sticking), 4:32. Brown, Van (roughing), 15:29; Gilbert, NY (roughing), 15:29.
Shots on goal -- Vancouver 10-6-13 -- 29. New York 14-13-13 -- 40.
Power-play opportunities -- Vancouver 0 of 6; New York 0 of 4.
Goalies -- Vancouver, McLean, 13-6 (39 shots-37 saves). New York,
Richter, 13-5 (29-28). Attendance -- 18,200.
Referee -- Bill McCreary. Linesmen -- Kevin Collins, Gerard Gauthier.
Mike (May 31-June 2 were the longest three days of my life -- to that point) Fornabaio -- mef17@oocities.com
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