Retro Post; The Greatest Canuck Stanley Cup Run

Ahhh, Vancouver.  If Montreal is to the NHL what the Yankees are to MLB, then Vancouver Canucks are the NFL's Buffalo Bills.  They've been to the Big Show three times, only to each time come away empty.  Unless you happen to be in downtown Vancouver after the final game, then you are probably coming away with quite a few things unpaid for.

While 1983 was perhaps an anomaly in that nobody truly expected the Canucks to defeat the 2x defending champion New York Islanders (yes, you read that right), 1994 was the year when believers were made.  A strong core of forwards led by Pavel Bure, Trevor Linden, and Gino Odjick. Jyrki Lumme, Dave Babych and Dana Murzyn on defence and the last of the great stand up goaltenders in Kirk McLean, before everybody started adopting the Patrick Roy butterfly followed by hip surgery in your 30's style.  The Canucks provided an amazing playoff run full of drama, emotion and continuous highlight reel moments, courtesy of Pavel Bure. While the 2011 Canucks had the diving, the biting, the LUongoing nothing can beat 1994's team for sheer Hollywood drama.

First the dramatics of the come from behind 1st round seven game defeat of the Calgary Flames after being behind 3 games to 1 in the series, featuring Kirk McLean in 'The Save'

which led to the perhaps the biggest moment in Canuck playoff history up to that time, Pavel Bure and 'The Goal';

They then went on to beat the Dallas Stars 4 games to 1, with Shane Churla providing the cushioning needed for Pavel Bure and 'The Elbow'.

In the Conference Finals against Toronto (yes, they once made it to the conference finals) they went on to defeat the Maple Leafs in the dramatic overtime goal by Greg Adams, while most fans were still in the beer line up during the intermission.

 

And with that goal, all that were left were the Eastern Champion New York Rangers, who had eye-gouged, clawed and cheap-shotted their way to wining their respective conference on the elbows and creepy stare of Mark Messier.

Down 3 games to 1, the Canucks clawed back to force a game 7, in New York. The game before, Mark Messier deliberately runs over an already fallen Trevor Linden who had nearly been knocked unconscious on another missed call just seconds before by another Ranger in the dying minute of a New York loss. Listen to this call by Jim Robson (Linden is at the bottom of the screen 4 seconds in)...

Those 2 cheap shots gave Linden a couple broken ribs in the process. Having forced Game 7, Linden scores 2 goals, Layette hits the goal post in the dying minutes and it's the end of the dream. The New York crowd celebrates the last championship they will see in Madison Square Garden and the last time Mark Messier was relevant to his team.