Over on YouTube, the Islanders have posted a few more “official” videos. This batch includes the tribute videos for Bossy, Trottier, Gillies, and Arbour. There is also “The Equalizer” video which is a collection of classic Islander moments since 1972. Check them out below.
Mike Bossy #22 Tribute Video
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Bryan Trottier #19 Tribute Video
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Clark Gillies #9 Tribute Video
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Al Arbour Tribute Video
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“The Equalizer”
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Newsday’s Jim Baumbach spoke with the man, the myth, the Islanders coaching legend himself, Mr. Al “739″ Arbour about the Islanders playoff chances.
“I think they could surprise a lot of people,” he said. “I can’t tell you the outcome, no one can tell you that, but they finished very strong and they won when they had to win, and they really were the only team that did that.
“You never know what could happen in the playoffs. Look at the finalist from the last couple of years. They’re not the top ranked clubs.”
Just look at last year when eighth-seeded Edmonton made it out of the Western Conference, falling to second-seeded Carolina in the Stanley Cup finals.
“Ted Nolan’s done a great job with the team bouncing back,” Arbour added. “They kept a level head. They don’t seem to be too excited. They’re just playing their game and that’s it. They just worry about themselves. That’s the main thing.”
Arbour, like everyone else who followed the Islanders last week, rode the roller coaster of emotions as they overcome major odds to qualify for the playoffs.
“What a finish they had there with the goaltender who doesn’t have much NHL experience, but he did it, and they did,” he said. “It was a storybook ending.”
The Isles need a nice infusion of mojo and we’re here to help. To that end, we go back to May 1993 when a scrappy Islander squad shocked the NHL by eliminating Mario Lemiuex and the two-time defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins. This excerpt comes from a May 16, 1993 Boston Globe story:
Islanders’ game left Penguins stranded
Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff
16 May 1993
© 1993 New York Times Company. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
The Islanders rolled out of Pittsburgh Friday night in euphoria.
The Penguins rolled out on a stretcher.
“I’m still trying to figure this out,” said an elated Steve Thomas, one of the Islander forwards who helped stamp out the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions. “How’d we get so many guys with this much poise? We finish 14th overall {in the regular season}, squeak into the playoffs in the last week — and here we are, going to the Cup semifinals.
“I don’t know if it shows we’re young, we’re stupid, or what.”
Perhaps more than anything, the Islanders are full of giddy energy, emerging talent and a not-much-beyond-adolescent enthusiasm that is channeled by one of the game’s most experienced and wisest coaches, Al Arbour. They are Cinderella escorted to the ball by Sean Connery in bifocals.
Meanwhile, the Penguins booted away their chance for a third straight Stanley Cup with all the befuddlement of the 1980 Russian Olympic hockey team. Seven games with the Islanders proved to be their Lake Placid, David Volek their Mike Eruzione. Failing to put the Islanders away in Game 6 by not using their physical strength, offensive prowess and championship poise, they left themselves vulnerable to the quirks of a decisive Game 7.
“We knew that if we let it go to a seventh game, anything could happen,” said Penguin goalie Tom Barrasso, who couldn’t snare Volek’s one-time slap shot as it whistled by him at 5:16 of sudden-death overtime. “Unfortunately, it did.”
The Islanders are just making up the story line as they go along.
“The game plan works, that’s all we know,” said a beaming Ray Ferraro, a former flounderer with the Forever .500 Whalers, now the bright-eyed offensive chatterbox of the NHL’s most surprising team. “And let’s face it, nothing we’re doing is too complicated. We know the Canadiens know what we do, but so did the Penguins.”
The Islanders have a young but accomplished defense, spiced by the aggressive and unpredictable Darius Kasparaitis. They’ve also got goaltender Glenn Healy, who hasn’t received the rave reviews of Felix Potvin (Toronto) and Curtis Joseph (St. Louis) this postseason, but his wins in Games 6 and 7 were as solid as the work of Barrasso, Bill Ranford (Edmonton), Mike Vernon (Calgary), Grant Fuhr (Edmonton) or Patrick Roy (Montreal) in recent Cup runs.
“He’s the reason we won the series,” said Thomas. “He was a wall out there for us.”
No longer are they the powerhouse gang, stocked with the likes of Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, Smith and Potvin, that dominated the early ’80s. They’re a bunch of wheeling whiz kids, too young and inexperienced to be this good, too caught up in the moment to wonder why the clock never seems to strike midnight and no one asks them to hang up their glass slippers.
“I really feel we can win the Cup,” said Thomas, once a junior hockey linemate of Adam Oates and an Islander via trade with Chicago. “If we continue to play the way we have, and stay healthy, we’re going to win.”
Welcome to a new feature here at IslandersArmy that we hope will last. I’ve come across an abundance of old articles on the club. We’re going to share portions of the articles with you guys. I love reading this stuff. You really get a sense of what the team was like, how the public viewed them, and how they compared with the rest of the league. You also come across some old names that may have slipped your mind.
Anyway, onto the first edition. We go back to December 1977, courtesy of the Toronto Globe and Mail, long one of the best pubs at covering the great game:
Donald Ramsay
14 December 1977
Last June, only days before the National Hockey League conducted its draft of 20-year-olds, Mike Bossy thought he was ticketed for Toronto Maple Leafs.
He was gearing himself for that prospect when an early-morning call came to his Laval, Que., home. It was New York Islanders general manager Bill Torrey. Leafs had bypassed the high-scoring right winger and the Islanders had made him their No. 1 selection.
“My sights were set on Toronto. They said they were going to take me in the first round,” Bossy said yesterday. “Actually, I thought I would go higher in the draft than 15th over all but when I thought about the Islanders I realized I was going to an established, disciplined team that was a contender. I was very pleased. ”
Leafs opted for right winger John Anderson and defenceman Trevor Johansen ahead of Bossy, who now is the early favorite for Calder Trophy honors as the league’s top rookie.
Playing on a line with left winger Clark Gillies and centre Bryan Trottier, the league’s leading scorer, Bossy started quickly and scored his 20th goal in his 23rd game.
Most scouts overlooked Bossy in the first half of the draft because of his defensive deficiencies. His offensive ability was never questioned. In four seasons with Laval Nationals of the Quebec Major Junior League, Bossy scored 318 goals.
“I knew Islanders emphasized defence,” Bossy said. “Al Arbour called me and said if I worked hard and wanted it, there was a spot on the right side. I knew my defensive game wasn’t what it should be. When I came to training camp I concentrated a bit too much on defence and I was struggling a bit. Al told me not to worry, to open up and play my own game. If he saw any weakness he said he would point it out.”
As promised, I’ve uploaded some videos to YouTube of the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals Game 4. The Islanders defeated Vancouver 3-1 and won the series 4 games to none. We start it off with all the Islanders goals of the game, including 2 by Conn Smythe winner Mike Bossy.
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Next up we’ve got the end of the game and the beginning of the celebration on the ice.
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Finally we wrap it up with the post-game interviews, Bossy, Trotts, the Sutter brothers, John Pickett, Butch Goring, and Al Arbour.
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Hey Islander fans, are you busy for the next fifteen minutes? I hope not…because you are now. IslandersArmy.com has fifteen minutes of Stanley Cup celebrating, drinking, and interviews from 1981.
First we start with the end of the game - the last :45 seconds and the beginning of the celebration. On ice interviews with Bryan Trottier, Butch Goring (Conn Smythe Trophy Winner), Denis Potvin, and John Tonelli. Then the action heads inside the locker room where there is a lot of champagne being sprayed and an interview with Mike Bossy. Finally, they present the Conn Smythe trophy to Goring.
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In part two, there are interviews with Anders Kallur, Clark Gillies, Wayne Merrick (game winning goal), and Ken Morrow.
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Two great old school Islanders fight videos for you today. First it’s a 1979 bench clearing brawl with the Flyers. Gillies, Howatt, and Smith all get into it real good.
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Then here’s the infamous “2 seconds remaining line change” by Al Arbour vs. the Rangers when he put Baumgartner and Vukota out on the ice to dole out some punishment for LaFontaine being injured earlier in the game.
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