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Good For St Patrick - But You Know What Bugs Me?


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What bugs me is the endlessly-repeated claim that the 1993 Habs were a 'medicore' team that Roy miraculously carried to the Cup. You hear this all the time.

Here's the record of this supposedly 'middle-of-the-pack' team (which is what TSN called it in their little recap of Roy's greatest moments):

84 games

48 wins

30 losses

6 ties

102 points

6th overall

Nearly 50 wins? That's mediocre? 6th overall out of what, 28 teams or whatever it was back then?

A team with Kirk Muller, Vinny Damphousse, Brina Bellows, Eric Desjardins, Matthew Schneider, John LeClair, Guy Carbonneau, Denis Savard, and blood and guts winners like Skrudland and Keane - not exactly crapola.

Of course Roy was their best player. But he was the cornerstone of a damned strong mix of classy veterans at their peak and rising young talent. For pete's sake, let's give the team some respect.

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Roy was an arrogant and hot tempered guy on the ice. But Roy had talent. He had that winning drive and there is no question that without him that Cup would have been impossible. Who'd be in net?? Red Light Racicot?

There's an article on it here that I suspect you may have read in which Jack Todd refers to Roy's Cup teams are mediocre.

And I couldn't agree more with the quote that ends this article: http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/hockey...1325&page=2

You wonder where the thoroughly mediocre Tremblay will be the night Roy is inducted into the Hall of Fame. You wonder how the thoroughly mediocre Canadiens might have fared with their all-galaxy goalie at his post.We'll never know. But we do know this: St. Patrick is where he belongs. In hockey heaven.
Edited by smon
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Where'd you get that info??

Montreal Canadiens 84GP 41W 29L 14T 96pts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993-94_NHL_s...Final_standings

They were 5th in the Eastern conference...obviously a good team, but not 6th overall in the league.

The team obviously deserves respect...but let's keep in mind that in the high scoring league of then, there were only 2 guys with 70+pts

Erm...thats the wrong season.

1992-93. Not 93-94

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Well you have to ask yourself these questions.

Would Montreal have won the cup without Vincent Damphouse? Maybe/Maybe Not

Would Montreal have won the cup without Brian Bellows? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Denis Savard? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Kirk Muller? Maybe/Maybe Not

Would Montreal have won the cup without Mattiew Schneider? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Eric Dejardins? Maybe/ Maybe Not

Then you have to ask yourself would Montreal have won the cup without Patrick Roy? NO WAY

Would Montreal even have made the playoffs without Patrick Roy? Probably not.

Theres a reason Patrick Roy won the Conn Smythe, theres a reason there is this myth that Patrick Roy single handedly drove Montreal to the Stanley Cup....that reason is that its pretty much true.

No one person does it by themselves, but he came as close as anybody to doing it.

Enjoy the Hall of Fame Patrick, you have earned it. Infact he probably deserved what Lemieux and Gretzky deserved and should have been inducted as soon as he retired. Its kinda a shame he wasn't

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Well you have to ask yourself these questions.

Would Montreal have won the cup without Vincent Damphouse? Maybe/Maybe Not

Would Montreal have won the cup without Brian Bellows? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Denis Savard? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Kirk Muller? Maybe/Maybe Not

Would Montreal have won the cup without Mattiew Schneider? Maybe

Would Montreal have won the cup without Eric Dejardins? Maybe/ Maybe Not

Then you have to ask yourself would Montreal have won the cup without Patrick Roy? NO WAY

Would Montreal even have made the playoffs without Patrick Roy? Probably not.

Theres a reason Patrick Roy won the Conn Smythe, theres a reason there is this myth that Patrick Roy single handedly drove Montreal to the Stanley Cup....that reason is that its pretty much true.

No one person does it by themselves, but he came as close as anybody to doing it.

Enjoy the Hall of Fame Patrick, you have earned it. Infact he probably deserved what Lemieux and Gretzky deserved and should have been inducted as soon as he retired. Its kinda a shame he wasn't

I think Muller was a lot closer to being a deserving Conn Smythe winner that year than people generally acknowledge, but actually I agree with the gist of what you're saying. (Although it's conceivable, if less likely, that they could have won with some other excellent goalie). My point is just that it's one thing to say that Roy was the biggest reason they won, and another to say that that was a 'mediocre' team.

Incidentally, they wouldn't have won without Desjardins. If he hadn't scored that hat trick in Game 2 - tying it up with about one minute left! The single most exciting moment I've seen live in my life - we'd have been toast.

Anyway: the 1993 team was a DAMNED STRONG CLUB. Bon. But was Roy an incredibly great player? Abso-friggin'-lutely.

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I still have crystal clear memories of that 1993 Cup Run. Mostly because somewhere in the World there's about a dozen Nords fans who owe me 20$ each for taking me on a bet that the Habs would win 4 straight games after dropping the first two games vs the Nords. Also because many of those same Nords fans tried to get revenge by betting on Buffalo the next round and lost again.

Anyway, back to the topic: that Habs team wasn't "mediocre", but it was indeed "middle of the pack". Except for the top 4 of Damphousse, Muller, Bellows and Lebeau and the Carbo-Keane duo, they didnt really had a great cast of forwards. Savard was on the decline and injured, Brunet was still green and Gilbert Dionne was one-dimensionnal. The rest of the lineup was full of pluggers like Ronan, LeClair, DiPietro, Leeman, Belanger and such.

What the Habs had was an underrated bunch of puck-moving D-men, in the pure sense of the term: Desjardins, Schneider, Daigneault, Haller, Brisebois and Odelein were all mostly unknown then, but they could do the job. Schneider, Desjardins and Daigneault in particular were extremely efficient then. Though few recall that at that time Los Angeles also boasted a good D, and had a young "Big 3" of Blake, Sydor and Zhitnik breaking out.

Patrick Roy was the only "world class" player on that team; and when the going got rough he was the one who kept the Habs afloat. The Habs had little in the way of offense going on for them. Quebec, Buffalo, NY Islanders and Los Angeles all had superior offense to the Habs.

So Roy really was the difference maker that year.

But the other thing the Habs had aside from Roy that year was some of the best discipline and cohesion I've ever seen a team display. These guys didn't have load of experience or a ton of talent, but they would pay the price to make the plays. I can't recall how many times I've seen Daigneault or Keane or Brunet hold unto the puck and get creamed just so they could make a pass and create a play. And after they got laid down, they wouldnt try to retaliate; they'd get up and keep playing.

So in the end, it was Roy and one of the most cohesive, disciplined and determined team in recent NHL history that won that Cup.

That and perhaps some help from the Forum ghosts too. ;)

Edited by KoZed
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I still have crystal clear memories of that 1993 Cup Run. Mostly because somewhere in the World there's about a dozen Nords fans who owe me 20$ each for taking me on a bet that the Habs would win 4 straight games after dropping the first two games vs the Nords. Also because many of those same Nords fans tried to get revenge by betting on Buffalo the next round and lost again.

What a great playoffs that was.....That was the year that, because I was a Habs fan in L.A., I picked alot of Habs & Kings in my Kenaston, Saskatchewan Hockey pool and ended up in 7th place overall, and won $1,000 ($700 U.S.)......Like an idiot, I thought that Jari Kurri was washed up and didn't include him, or else I would have gotten 1st place ($10,000)........In any event, I was at Games 3 and 4 when LeClair scored the OT winners.......It was a great feeling and Patrick did save some of his finest work when the scored was tied in both 3rd periods of those games......As I was walking back to my car after Game 4, I could hear Kings fans muttering his name and shaking their heads.

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I think I have to agree with the "middle of the pack" claim even though I was far too young to be able to remember much of the run. I do however remember watching the Habs skate around with the Cup after they won. Anyways, I still have a Super Ninetendo along with NHL '94 and I must say, the Habs team is definitely average, although Roy is the huge stand-out.

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I think I have to agree with the "middle of the pack" claim even though I was far too young to be able to remember much of the run. I do however remember watching the Habs skate around with the Cup after they won. Anyways, I still have a Super Ninetendo along with NHL '94 and I must say, the Habs team is definitely average, although Roy is the huge stand-out.

Yeah they were kinda average.

They had a little remaining of the dominating defensive team they had been in the late 80's/early 90's but that was starting to dwindle; and the offensive side they had tried to give themselves with the Savard/Richer/Turgeon (Sylvain) experiment never really worked.

So in 1993 the Habs were kinda trying to develop a new identity. Muller was only in his second season in Montreal, Damphousse and Bellows were in their first. Brunet, LeClair, DiPietro, Haller, Dionne and Brisebois had never played a full season in the NHL before 92-93 and Ramage and Leeman had been acquired during the season. So the team was in a sort of transition during that particular year, which made the Cup Run just the more surprising.

One thing many people forget or ignore about that Habs' edition however, is that a lot of its success has to be attributed to Jacques... Lemaire! Few people mention it, but Lemaire was basically the "Head Coach in the Shadows". His official title was something like Assistant to the GM, but in reality he was taking care of most of the technical aspects of the coaching like strategies and tactics, leaving Jacques Demers take care of the motivational side of the job.

If you stumble across an old video of the last game in Montreal where the Habs won the Cup, by the end of the game in the last seconds of the 3rd period, you can see Lemaire waiting for the game to end in the hallway next to the Habs bench. Kind of a nice hidden hint of all the work he had done but got no credit for.

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What a great playoffs that was.....That was the year that, because I was a Habs fan in L.A., I picked alot of Habs & Kings in my Kenaston, Saskatchewan Hockey pool and ended up in 7th place overall, and won $1,000 ($700 U.S.)......Like an idiot, I thought that Jari Kurri was washed up and didn't include him, or else I would have gotten 1st place ($10,000)........In any event, I was at Games 3 and 4 when LeClair scored the OT winners.......It was a great feeling and Patrick did save some of his finest work when the scored was tied in both 3rd periods of those games......As I was walking back to my car after Game 4, I could hear Kings fans muttering his name and shaking their heads.

Haha! There was some pretty good atmosphere at those two games. I think there was a couple of celebrities in the stands too. On TV it had some "LA Lakers from Magic Johnson's era" type of vibe to it all. Must have been so awesome.

I was 16 back then. Most of my gang of friends were split 50-50 between the Habs and Nords, so the first series really was a huge deal. Then as the series went on, school ended so we were on vacations while the Habs kept going further and further. We'd have huge game partys back then, just insane stuff.

The series vs LA was just... incredible stuff. First game Habs got owned. The Kings just looked like a machine. The second game was going that way too. Habs just couldnt mount much offense and the Kings were clicking. Then we all know what happened. Illegal stick, big Desjardins goal, then the OT hat-trick.

The two LeClair goals were just awesome. The one in Game 3 was a nice one. It was so freaking late in the night on the East Coast when it happened. I remember it was already like the 9th OT win in that year for the Habs, so on top of the OT excitement you had the excitement of keeping the OT win streak alive.

Game 4 will always be remembered for that Roy wink at Sandstrom. That was just a crazy play. Its 2-2 late 3rd period with about a minute left in regulation time. Game's heading to OT. Then on a play in the Habs' zone, the puck's loose, coming out from behind the net and one... two... THREE Habs players fan on the puck. Robitaille gets to it, his back to the Habs' net, spins around and shoots. Roy stops it, but at the same time Sandstrom's cutting across the crease and banging on the puck in Roy's glove, to no avail, ref whistles. Then right after you've got the famous wink. Stuff out of a movie. How the cameraman got the idea to zoom on Roy's face at that particular moment is just inexplicable. Then in OT LeClair gets his 2nd straight OT goal (on a crazy lucky play, with Kings players falling all over the place and LeClair banking the puck off a Kings falling in the net). Right then and there you knew there was too many magic moments, there's no way the Habs are not winning the Cup.

Edited by KoZed
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.............here you knew there was too many magic moments, there's no way the Habs are not winning the Cup.

I remember Snif snif I remember (tear falling)

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I accept that the team had middling offensive talent, but they had tremendous chemistry, leadership, and coaching, in addition to goaltending - all keys to winning. You don't finish 6th overall with an 'average' team. 48 wins, remember. Kirk Muller alone was the equivalent of the current Habs' entire first line :lol:

I was in the Montreal Forum for Game 5 (the Cup) and for Game 2 - the infamous McSorely Stick. I tell you, Game 2 must be the single most electrifying moment since the dynasty era. Having lost Game 1, we were trailing for most of the game...it looked like we'd be down 0-2 going to LA...I couldn't believe it. I remember at one point, in standing room, I started hollering out the names of the Forum ghosts ('Richard!! Morenz!!' etc.) trying desperately to change the atmosphere. The French guy next to me was drunk and in despair. He'd raise his head once in a while to scream at the ref and then plunge back into a funk. When Demers challenged McSorley's stick, I was enraged, thinking we'd get a penalty...then when Demers pulled Roy, I was again enraged, thinking the Kings were certain to score on the empty net...BUT Desjardins fired it home, and the whole place went absolutely bananas, beer flying, guys running down the corridor of standing room, strangers hugging each other, madness. We KNEW we weren't going to lose in OT.

What a moment!!

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