Once upon a time (in 2002), the Canadiens were about to face the Pittsburgh Penguins led by a re-invigorated Mario Lemieux.
One of these teams was led by a cancer survivor, the other’s leader in the midst of the fight, but there was a hockey game to play that night and that was a whole other war.
“There has been no playoff hockey in this city for three springs; the Canadiens have celebrated a Stanley Cup victory in every decade since the Paleozoic era,” said Dave Molinari.
The year was 2002 and fresh out of a mediocre spiral that had begun in 1998-99, the Canadiens had started the season without Saku Koivu and a slew of injuries that would make that year one of the most unlikely ever for an NHL team.
When Penguins goaltending coach Gilles Meloche was questioned about the Canadiens, he was asked if he expected to see them at the start of the season fighting with the Rangers for the 7th seed.
‘’Nope, not me,” he said. “And none of the experts.”
The unusualness of the 2002 team had largely been the work of a new coach Michel Therrien and a newly minted young GM André Savard who dared to trade longtime forwards Brian Savage, Benoit Brunet and Martin Rucinsky, faces that had been strongly associated to the post-‘93 building effort.
“Sometimes just by getting rid of players – it doesn’t matter who you get in return – you change your team’s attitude.”
The change in attitude benefitted the younger core led by Jose Theodore (who would go on and win the Hart and Vezina trophy) and the addition of Doug Gilmour would give the Canadiens the leadership and prestige that the dressing room never could muster up in past seasons. Rick Kehoe, the Penguins coach at the time would say the following about Gilmour prior to the game:
“He’s one of those type who brings out the best in other players,” he said. “When they lost Koivu, Gilmour kinda filled that role. Once he got into game shape, he started producing. When you see a guy like him – he’s not a big guy – play the way he does, it inspires the rest of the team.”
Montreal’s lineup was helped by Michel Therrien’s strong role mentality. The Canadiens had a well-defined lineup with Joe Juneau leading one of the best shutdown lines in the NHL that season coupled with Gilmour and Yanic Perrault’s more offensive minded lines. Yet, Meloche has no doubts why the Canadiens were in the race; it was all Theodore.
“I’ve never seen him play that well, I’ve watched him for the last ten years,” he said.
“In junior and throughout his young career,” Meloche would add, “he was always a good goalie but now, he’s got confidence, he sees the puck like it’s a basketball.”
The Canadiens would go on to knock off the first place Bruins that year after a courageous return from captain Saku Koivu with 3 games to play in April.
From the 2002 team only Andrei Markov remains today. When questioned about that year’s run in a local interview, Markov would look up and smile, and his short, yet clear answer gave out the key to the Habs success’ that year:
‘’Good team.”
A big thanks to the team from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette who helped me get the material for this article.
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