With Tuesday’s shutout victory in Colorado, the Canucks have clinched a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 2004. I am not bold enough to speculate about how far they’ll go in the post season. I’m much too superstitious for that. Instead, I want to talk a bit about playoffs past, specifically 1994.
The ’94 Cup run was amazing. They came within one goal of winning it all. I was only 11 years old at the time, so I don’t remember everything about that playoff year, but I will never forget the conference quarter-finals against the Flames where the Canucks came back from a 3-1 series deficit to win three overtime games in a row. Nor will I ever forget how I felt on the day of game 7 against the Rangers. I was a complete stress case. I was pretty much a zombie at school that day. The only thoughts that were going through my head were “They could win. They could win. They could win. Game seven. Game seven. Game seven.”… over and over. When I got home from school, I remember annoying the hell out of my Dad because I couldn’t sit still to eat dinner, and I just kept pacing around the house. I remember him trying to get me to relax with half an hour to game time by insisting that we take a walk around the block to pass the time. It didn’t work though. Nothing could calm me down. I remember screaming at Esa Tikkanen when he took out Bure in front of the net in the 3rd period. I remember cheering when Linden scored to bring the Canucks to within one goal on the resulting powerplay. I remember how twice it felt like my heart had stopped when Gelinas hit the post and then a minute later Lafayette did the same, with just a couple of minutes left in the game. And then of course there was some crying and disappointment as the game ended. To be honest, that game still makes me cry when I watch it (yeah, I bought the Rangers DVD box set just so I could watch the 3 games that Vancouver won in that series…)
Only twice have the Canucks won a playoff series since 1994. Twice! In fact, they have only made the playoffs six times since then. That’s pretty scary, but I guess it makes me even more excited for this year’s post season to begin. Especially since the Canucks have such a solid defensive system this year, which I think has been their biggest problem in the last decade or so. Now that I think about it, the last time prior to this season that the Canucks had truly exceptional goaltending was 1994 when Kirk McLean was at the top of his game. Since then it seems the team has been plagued with injuries and inconsistency in net.
When I think about the 1994 Canucks, and I re-watch the series against the Rangers, one of the things I notice is how the team played with so much heart and drive to win. Also, they truly played as a team. Sure, they had a number of very skilled players, but it was entirely a team effort. I have seen flashes of that kind of drive and team spirit in the Canucks this year, but only flashes. It hasn’t been particularly consistent, but I think that is kind of typical of most teams during the regular season (the one exception that immediately comes to my mind this season would be the Sabres).
Like I said before, I don’t intend to speculate at how far the Canucks will go in the playoffs this year. All I can say is that I’m pretty excited see what happens.
