Wayne Gretzky: On the Ice With... (5 page)

The pivotal game broke the hearts of the Oilers and their loyal fans. Not even the victory in Game Five could give them the
boost they needed. The Islanders, en route to a second consecutive Stanley Cup championship, won Game Six to knock the young
Oilers out.

Though they didn’t make it to the finals, the team from Alberta had made their presence known. After only two years in the
NHL, the hockey world knew that the Gretzky Kid had a formidable supporting cast. If the Oilers continued to play as they
had been, few doubted they would give the older teams a run for their money in the 1981–82 season.

Wayne didn’t have much time for a real off-season after the 1980–81 period. He had been chosen to represent his country in
the Canada Cup.

An international competition originally created in 1976, the Cup pitted teams from the six best hockey
countries — Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Russia, Sweden, and the United States — against one another. The 1981 Canada
Cup was the second one ever to be played. Canadians everywhere were confident that their team would prove victorious.

The series did in fact begin with a resounding 9–0 win for Team Canada over Finland. The powerful frontline combination of
Wayne Gretzky. Buffalo Sabre Gil Perreault, and Montreal Canadien Guy Lafleur was devastating. Wayne himself racked up 2 goals
and 1 assist.

In the 8–3 victory over Team USA, Number 99 racked up 2 more goals and 2 assists. This commanding win was followed by a disappointing
4 — 4 tie versus the Czechs. Wayne was held scoreless.

The next matchup saw Team Canada winning 4–3, but at a heavy price. Gil Perreault fractured his ankle and Wayne bruised his
elbow badly when Sweden’s Lars Lindgren slashed him.

Wayne recovered and came out fighting in the next game against the Russians. Team Canada won 7–3. Then they defeated the U.S.
again, 4–1, and found themselves facing Russia once more in the finals.

Canada seemed ready, but the final game was a disaster. A hat trick by wingers Siergei Shepeleu and 2 goals from Igor Larionov
set the Russian offense on fire. When the smoke cleared, the score was a humiliating 8–1.

Team Canada’s defeat in the final against Russia sent shock waves across the country. “The last thing we wanted to do was
lose so badly,” a tearful Gretzky said. “Now what happened here will go on for another four years.”

While vacationing in Florida, Wayne tried to put the devastating defeat in the Canada Cup behind him. Instead, he thought
about the upcoming season and what he could do to help his team and improve his own standings. He pledged to shoot the puck
instead of always looking to pass. It was a promise he kept.

In the first 14 games he made a total of 17 goals; after 34 games, the tally was 35. Fans started speculating on his chances
of reaching the “50 goals in 50 games” milestone, a record set by Montreal center Maurice Richard thirty-six years earlier
and tied by Mike Bossy of the Islanders the previous year.

With such a record within his grasp, Wayne was unstoppable. A 3-goal performance in Minnesota was followed by 2 goals in Calgary;
1 goal against
Vancouver; and 4 goals in Los Angeles. Suddenly Wayne was a mere 5 goals away — and he had 12 games yet to play!

Even more remarkable was the fact that in these 4 games alone Wayne contributed 9 assists. But the effort was not without
its consequences. Wayne left the Los Angeles game in severe pain due to a knee injury. But at 5 goals away from tying Richard
and Bossy, he was prepared to tough it out.

On December 30, 1981, the Oilers hosted the Philadelphia Flyers. Wayne’s goal-scoring spree went into high gear for the game.
He began with a tip-in late in the first period, then followed with a 35-foot drive. Two goals down, 3 to go for the “50 in
50” mark — and the game was still in the first period!

In the second period, he inched closer to the mark by streaking in alone and firing a 25-foot wrist shot under the crossbar.
But he wasn’t content to stop with a hat trick. Five minutes into the third period, he slammed in a 30-foot slap shot over
the shoulder of the beleaguered Flyers’ goalie. The hometown crowd went crazy.

But the game wasn’t over yet. The Flyers had been scoring right alongside the Oilers. In the last
moments of the game, they were trailing 6–5. In a move aimed at increasing their offensive power, they pulled their goalie
and added an extra skater.

The vacant net proved to be the Flyers’ downfall. With seven seconds left, Glenn Anderson set up Wayne, the highest scorer
in the league. Flyer Bill Barber made a desperate dive, but the end result was inevitable. Nothing could keep Number 99 from
scoring his fifth goal of the night, fiftieth of the season in 39 games. It was the fastest 50 in hockey history. In all,
Wayne had 108 points, 40 better than his nearest rival.

After the game, Wayne’s roommate, Kevin Lowe, confessed that at the pregame meal Wayne had commented on how good he felt that
day. “There’s no reason why I can’t score five goals tonight,” he said prophetically.

No record seemed safe with Wayne Gretzky on the loose. Two months later, on February 24, 1982, in Buffalo, Wayne surpassed
Phil Esposito’s singleseason, 76-goal record. Late in the third period, Wayne stole the puck at the Sabre blue line and moved
in to flick a wrist shot past Buffalo goalie Don Edwards. Score!

The game was stopped so Phil Esposito himself could present the record-setting puck to the Great One. But just so there wouldn’t
be any doubt about his having met and passed the record, Wayne scored twice more in the final minutes of the game.

And Wayne wasn’t finished yet. With 5 games remaining in the regular season, Number 99 had 199 points, just one shy of the
seemingly impossible 200-point milestone.

Wayne flew his parents Walt and Phyllis to Calgary for the Oilers’ next game. He had been disappointed that they hadn’t been
in the crowd for his 5-goal game against Philadelphia. Nobody would be disappointed this time.

In the three periods of the game, Wayne got not 1 but 2 assists and 2 goals when his team was short-handed due to penalties.
He hadn’t just met the 200-point barrier, he had shattered it!

Wayne Gretzky’s pursuit of the Richard, Esposito, and 200-point records captured the imagination of the entire hockey world.
The world beyond hockey soon followed. Special press conferences were held wherever the Oilers were playing. The night Wayne
broke Esposito’s record, there were over three hundred
members of the media on hand to cover the historic event. Wayne remembered it as the year he lost the last of what little
privacy he had left. His was an instantly recognizable face, that of a real celebrity.

The rest of the Oilers were maturing along with the superstar. In the 1981–82 season, Mark Messier scored 50 goals. Defenseman
Paul Coffey racked up 89 points and made the All-Star team. Glenn Anderson collected 105 points. And the “Flying Finn” Jari
Kurri ended with 32 goals and 86 points. Edmonton’s incredible offensive firepower had amassed 417 goals and 706 assists for
a total of 1,123 points — all NHL records.

The cocky Oilers were ready to cruise into the playoffs. They were second only to the mighty Islanders.

The Oilers faced the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs. From the start, it was apparent
that they weren’t taking the Kings seriously. After all, the Kings had finished some 48 points behind them during the regular
season.

Their overconfidence would prove their undoing.

In Game One at Edmonton, the Oilers squandered
a 4–1 lead and lost by a disappointing 10–8. Wayne bailed out his team with an overtime game-winning goal in Game Two, but
amazingly, the Oilers then blew a 5–0 lead in Game Three, losing 6–5 in overtime. The Oilers brought the series back to Edmonton
with a 3–2 win in Game Four, but they had run out of steam. In the fifth and deciding game, the underdog Kings prevailed 7–4.
The Oilers’ season was over.

In the locker room a somber Wayne Gretzky spoke to the media. “This is worse than losing the Canada Cup,” he said. “We took
two big steps forward [this season], but unfortunately we took a giant step backward.”

The newspapers turned on the team. “They Choked!” the
Edmonton Journal
headlines proclaimed. The team was described as “weak-kneed wimps” by the same people who had embraced their cocky, swashbuckling
style before the playoffs began.

Wayne and the rest of the Oilers tried their best to put the disaster of the 1982 playoffs behind them. Nevertheless, it was
a rough off-season in
Edmonton. Everywhere Wayne went he was reminded of the Oilers’ playoff failure.

The backlash against the team was more than just disappointment, however. Many people felt that the Oilers, most of whom were
in their early twenties, were simply too cocky for their own good. Under the old NHL rules, many would have been barely out
of junior hockey. In addition, many in the league felt that the Oilers were unnecessarily antagonistic toward opponents, officials,
and referees. They doubted that this was the way for the team and its superstar to attain their ultimate goal: the Stanley
Cup.

Wayne’s dramatic personal accomplishments were in marked contrast to the performance of his team. Besides the Richard and
Esposito records, he had broken his own NHL record for assists (120) and won the scoring title by 65 points, the widest margin
in league history. But his team had been bounced from the playoffs in the first round. A new kind of pressure was building
in Edmonton — the pressure for the Oilers to work together and win as a team.

In the off-season, Wayne had plenty of time to reflect on the triumphs and failures of 1981–82 and to consider how to approach
the next year. The criticism that he couldn’t deliver for the Oilers come playoff time was weighing heavily on him. After
discussions with team management, it was agreed that Wayne’s ice time would be cut from 26 to about 22 minutes per game. Forward
Mark Messier, a budding superstar, would move from wing to center, thus giving the Oilers two strong and interchangeable centers.
These decisions were aimed at saving Wayne’s legs for the playoffs and, looking long term, at prolonging his career.

Wayne responded immediately to the changes. The 1982–83 season saw him set out on a 30-game scoring streak, a feat that earned
him the prestigious
Sports Illustrated
“Sportsman of the Year” accolade in December, the first hockey player so honored since Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins in
1970. More important, the Oilers were on track toward Stanley Cup glory.

Named a first-team All-Star for the third consecutive year, Wayne celebrated with a four-goal third period in the league’s
annual game in Washington. His efforts earned him the All-Star MVP award for the first time.

Playing a full eighty-game schedule for the third year in a row, Wayne led the league in all three offensive categories for
the second straight year, with 71 goals, 125 assists, and 196 points. The 125 assists broke his own 120 NHL mark from the
previous year. Wayne became the first player in the fifty-five-year history of the NHL to win the Hart Trophy as Most Valuable
Player for the fourth consecutive year.

But he knew that all the personal honors would be meaningless without a strong playoff showing.

Edmonton captured the Smythe Division with 5 fewer points (106) than the previous year. They scored 7 more goals (424) as
a team but surrendered
20 more (315), the downside of their wide-open offensive style of play. The whole city was primed for playoff redemption.

The 1983 Stanley Cup playoffs opened in Edmonton with Wayne notching the winning goal in Game One of the preliminary round
versus the Winnipeg Jets, an old WHA rival. Two single-goal wins followed for a 3-games-to-none sweep.

In the next round, the Smythe Division finals, the Calgary Flames provided the opposition. Since the Oilers’ arrival from
the WHA, the increasingly bitter Calgary-Edmonton rivalry had excited all of Alberta province. A bench-clearing brawl near
the end of the regular season had only intensified the competition. This would be the first of several playoff meetings between
the two clubs.

The Oilers jumped to a 3-games-to-none lead, outscoring Calgary 21 goals to 6. In Game One, Wayne was shut out, but Mark Messier
tallied 4 goals in a 6–3 win. Fights broke out in Game Two, proving that the rivalry was far from friendly, but that didn’t
stop the Oilers from taking the win. Wayne was more effective in this second matchup, assisting on goals by Jari Kurri and
Randy Gregg.

But it was Game Three that saw the Great One in peak form. He set up Paul Coffey for the Oilers’ first goal. He converted
a stolen puck and quick pass from Glenn Anderson into a wrist shot to the Calgary netminder’s glove side for a second goal.
Then he and Jari Kurri skated in a 2-on-1 break that earned his linemate an assist and himself a goal. Though a second breakaway
was thwarted, Wayne tipped in a pass from Kurri for his third goal of the night. His fourth and final goal — a record-tying
figure for most goals in a single playoff game — came off an easy backhand at close range. He finished the evening with a
pair of assists on goals by Mark Messier.

In all, Wayne set a playoff record by earning 7 points in one game. He now owned or shared thirty NHL records.

Calgary came back to edge the Oilers 6–5, claiming Game Four at home. But the rout was on in Game Five. Edmonton scored six
times on their first 21 shots on goal. They set a new Stanley Cup playoff series standard with their thirty-fourth goal in
the third period on a score by Glenn Anderson with Wayne and Jari Kurri assisting. The 9–1 victory sent
the Oilers on to their next opponents, Chicago, confident that their offense couldn’t be beat.

In 5 games the Oilers had averaged 7 goals per game. Wayne himself was on a playoff record scoring pace. Could anybody stop
them?