In Sportsnet magazine’s latest digital issue, The 25 Greatest NHL Games of All Time (it’s free!), five of our insiders recall the greatest hockey game they’ve ever witnessed. Here, Damien Cox remembers the Leafs’ OT win versus the Blues in 1993.
It’s hard to say that game one of a second-round series would be up there as one of the greatest games ever played. But it was one of those things where you kinda had to be there. Two days earlier, the Leafs had knocked off the heavily favoured Detroit Red Wings in overtime, 4–3, at Detroit. You had to remember at this point that the Toronto Maple Leafs organization hadn’t been past the second round since 1978. There was a hope that finally this was going to be a real opportunity for the Leafs to emerge from one of the darkest eras of team history—the 1980s—which was a decade of complete and utter misery. Cliff Fletcher had arrived with big plans and Doug Gilmour had arrived late the season before.
Maple Leaf Gardens had no air conditioning. It was May 3 and it was unusually hot. You had this sort of euphoria in the city over the excitement of the Detroit series and the Gardens were boiling. So much so I remember longtime Toronto Star columnist Jim Proudfoot wore shorts to the game to sit in the press box.
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St. Louis came in and it was apparent right away that Curtis Joseph was going to be spectacular. So you had this long, hot night. A 1–1 tie after regulation. It was clear it was gonna be a knock-down, drag-out scrap. So the game went into overtime. And then it went into a second overtime.
The Leafs sort of had some pressure in the Blues’ end. And then suddenly Gilmour had the puck behind the net. Joseph was in the St. Louis goal. Rick Zombo was at the one post battling with Dave Andreychuk. Bret Hedican was at the other post defending for the Blues. It looked like there was no way out. Nikolai Borschevsky was in front. And Gilmour went one way, then he went back the other way behind the net, and then he went back the other way. Finally he came out and by then everybody was sort of dizzy from the combination of the heat and the buzz of the day and the lateness of the hour and the nature of the game and the excitement of the possibilities. And he slipped out in front and backhanded it into the net to end the game.
It was 2–1. It created a new layer of euphoria. One of those incredible moments that you get in the sport where everything just adds up to create a spectacular single night.
It was the biggest Leafs goal since Lanny McDonald scored against the Islanders in 1978 to get them into the conference final. There was a sense this was a good team. Not just that, it was kind of a star-kissed team. That’s sort of how it played out until it was stopped by Wayne Gretzky and L.A.
For me, it was only my fourth or fifth year covering the team. I was still catching up on sleep from the Detroit series. What I remember from that spring is it all sorta became numbing. It was a cumulative effect of the games and the storylines. And certainly Gilmour was right at the centre of the whole thing.—As told to Kristina Rutherford
Illustration by Jacqui Oakley
