Wayne Gretzky: On the Ice With... (6 page)

The Chicago Blackhawks certainly couldn’t. In the first game of the Campbell Conference, Wayne scored his third playoff game
winner in an 8–4 victory. The Oilers routed the Blackhawks again in Game Two, 8–2.

In Chicago for Games Three and Four, the scores were closer but the results the same. Three years after joining the NHL from
the WHA, Gretzky and his gang were headed to the Stanley Cup finals. Four wins separated them from the big prize.

The New York Islanders, three-time Stanley Cup champions, stood between the Oilers and their championship dream. The aging
New Yorkers had slipped to second in their division during the regular season. Their overall record was tied for sixth best
in the league — 10 points behind the Oilers. It would be a contest of youthful energy versus experience.

The series opened in Edmonton before a wildly
cheering Northlands Coliseum crowd. But the cheers didn’t last long. Islander goalie Billy Smith shut out Gretzky and Edmonton
2–0.

In Game Two, Billy Smith made his presence known in a different way. With 2:04 left to play, Wayne was positioned in his favorite
spot behind the net. Smith kept his eye on him and, as Number 99 skated by, reached far out with his goalie stick and slashed
him on the thigh. As Wayne fell to the ice, the play sped away toward the Oilers’ goal.

Wayne recovered quickly but didn’t join his teammates. He moved right up in front of the New York net and angrily taunted
Smith. Both players raised their sticks. It looked as though a fight were about to break out.

The officials swiftly took control of the situation. Though Smith claimed he had been aiming for Wayne’s stick, not his leg,
he was sent to the penalty box on a slashing violation.

Despite this disadvantage, the Islanders won again, 6–3. The Oilers were now in a 2-games-to-none hole. The Stanley Cup was
slowly moving out of their reach.

Back home in New York with a chance to win in
front of their own fans, the Islanders completed a four-game sweep, winning 5–1 and 4–2. Wayne had been held without a goal
in the series, ending up with just 4 assists. Despite the Oilers’ having shattered playoff records for assists with 26 and
scoring with 38 points, the cries of “Can’t win the big one” echoed loudly throughout the hockey world.

The Oilers did learn a valuable lesson at the close of the finals. When they visited the winning locker room to congratulate
the Islanders, they expected to see jubilation among the victorious New York players. Instead they saw their rivals in various
degrees of pain and injury. Bryan Trottier, the smooth center, nursed an injured knee. Denis Potvin, a three-time winner of
the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, held an ice pack to his shoulder. High-scoring left wing Mike Bossy and
big-game goalie Billy Smith were bloodied, bruised, and black-eyed.

Wayne, Mark Messier, and the other Oilers looked at one another. There was barely a mark on them. They knew at that moment
that the Islanders were not just more experienced at playing “big
games”; they were more willing to play with everything they had.

Maybe the Oilers had gotten through Winnipeg, Calgary, and Chicago too easily; perhaps it had left them unprepared to fight
hard in the final matchup. Whatever the reason, they had not been quite ready to climb the mountain toward a championship.

Wayne was anxious to begin the 1983–84 season. Through four NHL seasons the Great One had set some twenty-four NHL records
and shared ten others. He had won four straight MVP awards and three consecutive scoring titles. The three highest single-season
point totals in NHL history all belonged to him.

Yet the Oilers had been defeated in the Stanley Cup finals. It was time for him to put aside personal goals to concentrate
on the team.

He was prepared to do whatever was necessary to make it the Oilers’ best year ever. He embarked on a vigorous weight-training
program and reported to training camp ten pounds heavier and feeling stronger.

At twenty-two, Wayne was the official captain of
the Oilers, taking over the duties from defenseman Lee Fogolin. The Oilers and their captain were on a mission from the moment
the 1983–84 season began. Anything less than a Stanley Cup championship parade would be considered a failure.

Edmonton’s offense was more explosive than ever. In one 4-game stretch, the team scored 33 goals. During a 5-game winning
streak, Wayne established an Oilers’ record with two 8-point games: a 4-goal, 4-assist effort versus Minnesota and a 3-goal,
5-assist performance against New Jersey. Through 52 games the Oilers averaged just under 6 goals per game; Wayne amassed 61
goals and 92 assists for a total of 153 points. His linemate Jari Kurri was second in scoring — 68 points behind.

Only one team seemed capable of causing problems for the Oilers: the Islanders. Since the Stanley Cup finals, the Oilers had
dropped six straight to the four-time defending champions. Every man on the Edmonton team knew that the road to the Stanley
Cup ultimately led to the Islanders’ Nassau Coliseum, but they just couldn’t seem to earn a win against their nemesis.

Still, the season was steaming ahead at full speed.
Then the Oilers suffered a series of setbacks. First, Wayne’s amazing streak of staying injury-free ended. He separated his
shoulder when Los Angeles Kings forward Dave Taylor hit him from the side into the boards. Despite this injury, Wayne played
through the pain. But when he suffered a second injury, this time to his left hand in a freak accident during a practice,
he was forced out of the lineup for six games.

This seemed like an eternity for a player who had missed only one game in over four seasons. To make matters worse for the
Oilers, Kurri was also out with an injury. Edmonton won only one game in six before both players reported back.

Fortunately, the time off the ice didn’t seem to affect Wayne’s playing. In his first game back versus Winnipeg, he plugged
in 2 goals and 2 assists. Playing three games in four days during one stretch, he scored 10 goals, including back-to-back
4-goal games at St. Louis and Pittsburgh.

Despite missing six games and getting less ice time down the stretch, Wayne still finished the season with 87 goals, 118 assists,
and 205 points. Forwards Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri had earned 54 and 52, respectively,
making the Oilers the first team in league history to boast three 50-goal scorers.

The team itself established an NHL record by scoring an amazing 446 goals. For the first time, Edmonton also finished with
the league’s best record: fifty-seven wins, eighteen losses, and five ties. It had been a long year for the Oilers, but now
that the playoffs were about to begin, they were in a good position. Oilers coach Glen Sather rested his big guns instead
of further assaulting the NHL record book.

That strategy paid off in the first round. Edmonton won a resounding 9–2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets in Game One. The Jets
came fighting back in Game Two, only to have Oiler defense-man Randy Gregg win the game in overtime 5–4. An efficient 4–1
win in Game Three at Winnipeg clinched the series in a sweep.

The next series, the Smythe Division final, turned out to be a classic matchup between rivals Edmonton and Calgary. The Oilers
grabbed Game One 5–2. But in Game Two they squandered a 4–1 lead and lost 6–5 in overtime.

The Oilers went to Calgary hungry and bounced
back with a pair of hard-fought victories, 3–2 and 5–3. Then in Game Five at home, the Oilers let Calgary back into the series
with a 5–4 win. With Wayne and several of the other Oilers battling a flu bug, the series moved back to Calgary for Game Six.
The Flames evened things up at 3 games apiece with a goal by their star, Lanny McDonald, in overtime.

In Game Seven, the Oilers looked to their star player to lead them to victory. And lead them he did. Using a combination of
speed and finesse, Wayne paced the Oilers’ attack with a goal and two assists in a 7–4 win.

“Everybody has a job to do and my responsibility is to put the puck in the net. I know I wasn’t doing my job,” Wayne said
later, referring to the fact that he had only had 2 assists in the previous three games. “Jari and I sat down together and
decided that if we had to go through people to get to the net, we’d do it.”

With Calgary behind them, the Oilers moved on to their next opponents. In the Campbell Conference finals, the Minnesota North
Stars, Norris Division champions, arrived ravaged by injuries. The Oilers took no chances.

Wayne scored the winning goals in each of the first two games in Edmonton, while fellow center Ken Linseman did the same in
Games Three and Four in Minnesota. Edmonton had swept their way back to the finals. But waiting for them was their nemesis,
the New York Islanders.

For the 1984 Islanders, who were four-time champions the rallying call had been “Drive for Five.” They had had a solid regular
season, totaling 104 points. Forwards Mike Bossy with 51 goals and Bryan Trottier with 111 points were still among the league’s
top offensive players. Defenseman Denis Potvin was still leading the defensive corps, and in the nets, Billy Smith, the game’s
best big-game goalie, was still the man. The New York team had the look of champions entering the Cup finals.

The experienced Islanders were favored to win their fifth consecutive Stanley Cup. But the Oilers were determined to give
them a rough ride. Roger Neilson, formerly of Vancouver and Los Angeles, had joined Edmonton’s coaching staff. He was instrumental
in helping the Oilers prepare for the rematch
of the previous year’s finals. He planned an attack that emphasized Edmonton’s strengths: speed, skating, and finesse.

The series opened on Long Island. Oilers center Kevin McClelland, acquired from Pittsburgh before the season primarily for
his defensive ability, scored the only goal in a tight-checking 1–0 victory. A brilliant save by Grant Fuhr in the third period
preserved the win.

Wayne couldn’t help but feel optimistic about the series. The Oilers seemed able to anticipate the Islanders’ every move well
in advance.

New York responded like the great champions they were in Game Two. Clark Gillies’ hat trick led the Islanders to a 6–1 victory.
The series stood at one game apiece.

Wayne was now feeling some personal pressure. The Islanders and goalie Billy Smith had shut him out in 9 straight playoff
games. The next 3 games would be played in Edmonton and he knew the fans would be expecting their superstar to perform.

The Oilers met the challenge with a 7–2 thrashing of the Islanders, but once again the Islanders were able to effectively
defend against the Great
One. They used a shadow technique, assigning a player to follow him all over the ice whether he had the puck or not.

Frustrated, Wayne decided to make an adjustment in his game. He would try to hold the puck a little longer than normal, fight
through the check before he made a pass, and thus open himself up for a possible return pass.

Less than two minutes into Game Four, the Islanders’ domination of Wayne Gretzky ended. A great pass by Dave Semenko sent
Wayne in alone on Billy Smith. A quick fake pulled Smith out of position. With the roar of the hometown crowd in his ears,
Wayne flicked in his first goal of the series. As if to prove it was no fluke, he added a second goal in the third period.
The Oilers took the game.

Edmonton now had a commanding 3-games-to-1 advantage. They were one victory away from their ultimate goal.

Wayne flew his whole family — Walt, Phyllis, brothers Keith, Glen, and Brent, and sister Kim — out to Edmonton for Game Five.

Prior to the match, Captain Gretzky made a brief speech to his teammates. He simply reminded his
fellow Oilers how close they were to proving they were the best team in the league.

Nobody in the dressing room wanted to let the opportunity to win at home slip away. They took to the ice determined to win.

The first twelve-minute period passed by scoreless. Then Wayne and Jari Kurri took over. Twice Kurri set up the Oilers’ captain
for goals, first with a lead pass for a partial breakaway, and later with a drop pass off a 3-on-1 jump.

With the Islanders down 2–0, coach Al Arbour replaced netminder Billy Smith. At the start of the second period, the crowd
could sense the tide turning in favor of their beloved Oilers.

On the power play in the opening minute of the middle period, Ken Linseman scored a goal on assists from Wayne and Charlie
Huddy. Four and a half minutes later Kurri got a power play goal of his own, set up by Paul Coffey and Glenn Anderson. The
Islanders trailed 4–0 after two periods.

Two goals by Islander Pat LaFontaine in the first minute of the third period turned the rout into a game again. But Oiler
goaltender Andy Moog made several huge saves to frustrate the Islanders, including
a spectacular stop on New York’s Denis Potvin. Moog received a rousing ovation.

With less than three minutes left to play, the Islanders pulled their goalie in one last desperate attempt to create some
offense momentum. Instead, the Oilers’ Dave Lumley found the empty net with 28 seconds left. Final score: Oilers 5, Islanders
2.

The Islanders’ reign as champions was over!

The Northlands Coliseum exploded. Balloons and streamers filled the air all the way to the rafters. Jubilant fans poured over
the boards onto the ice. Wayne Gretzky, the captain of the Stanley Cup champions, held his little brother Brent in his arms
as he skated around the rink. A new dynasty was just beginning.

When the Stanley Cup was wheeled onto the ice, Wayne couldn’t wait to claim it. National Hockey League president John Ziegler
never had the opportunity to make his presentation speech. Wayne hugged him, picked up the trophy, and held it aloft to the
fans. The Oilers embarked on the long-awaited traditional winner’s skate with the Cup as
the players passed the prize back and forth among themselves.

In the locker room, the celebration continued. Champagne corks popped. Hugs and kisses were exchanged among the Oilers and
their families. The Gretzkys were no exception. Walt and Phyllis were right in the middle of the bedlam.