Chapter 7: The Wink

Patrick Roy was living in the Montreal Suburb of Rosemere in 1993, and the reality of his poor performance all season was finalized to him when he picked up the local newspaper to find that even his own neighbors were polled and they were in favor of him being traded. It seemed at that point, the only one still holding out for him was the Montreal coach Jacques Demers and even he was under intense fire for standing by the goalie.

The Montreal Canadiens were seen as a long shot as a Stanley Cup contender when they entered the playoffs against their longtime, hated rivals, the Quebec Nordiques. Everyone’s fears were confirmed when Montreal lost both games one and two against Quebec and Roy was scorched in the press. HEXTELL (Quebec goaltender Ron Hextell) GETS BETTER OF ROY, read one headline. Montreal fans pressed Demers to change goaltenders and let back up Andre Racicot have a go as a starter. Never mind that Racicot’s nick name was “Red Light” in part because of the frequency in which he was scored upon.

Nordiques Coach, Patrick Roy’s idol, Daniel Bouchard bragged to the press about how they as a team had solved the riddle of Patrick Roy. Of course Patrick read this comment, and perhaps Bouchard should have known better.

Before game three the pressure was intense on Demers to start Racicot but Demers, who had made a promise earlier in the year to Patrick, stayed true to his word and announced Patrick as their continuing starter. Patrick, for his part, tinkered with his own magic and switched the order in which he skated face off circles in the preskate, an order he had been faithful to for seven years straight.

Patrick put his head to the storm and the team followed suit and they snarled back to win games three and four of the series in Montreal and tie it at two games a piece. There was hope once again as the series swung back to Quebec’s Le Colisee.

Montreal got off to a lead against the Nordiques in game 5 when disaster struck in the form of a slapshot that had rung off Roy’s shoulder early in the second period. Roy’s arm was immediately paralyzed and he was unable to lift it. He was taken from the game and Racicot put in net.

The move invigorated the Nordiques who began to manhandle the Canadiens. The word from the Habs locker room that was sent to the press box was that Roy was gone from the game with a shoulder injury.

“It looks like a bruised rotator cuff,” team orthopedist Eric Lenczner told Roy as he was tending to him in the locker room.

Patrick watched helplessly on the television as Racicot quickly allowed two goals to allow the Nordiques to tie the game.

“Can we freeze it?” Roy asked.

“We can try,” Lenczner answered.

Patrick’s shoulder was injected with an anesthetic called, Marcaine, which numbed the pain in his shoulder but he still wasn’t able to move it. It didn’t matter. Patrick joined the team for the third period and held his ground as Montreal won in overtime.

“Pat just wanted to win,” Lenczner says of that time, “As long as players know they can’t do permanent damage to themselves, most push the envelope of pain. They just don’t talk about it much.”

The game five win ended up being a crucial one as the Montreal Canadiens upset the Quebec Nordiques in the first round. They won six more consecutive games in overtime as they marched through the second and third rounds. Patrick distinguished himself in those overtimes compiling an ever growing shut out streak in overtime. He dazzled crowds by stopping breakaways in consecutive overtimes. Overtime for this Canadiens team was not an easy thing to win for a goaltender. Jacques Demers was not a defensive minded coach by any means and he preferred an open run and gun style of game that favored offense and required the goaltender to clean up in defense.

By that time, people were again daring to believe in the Montreal Canadiens and St. Patrick. The ghosties were again sighted in the rafters and dancing in the stands. This was the one hundredth anniversary of the existence of the Stanley Cup Finals, something special had to be happening.

The Montreal Candiens had a few days rest before the Stanley Cup Finals. The Los Angeles Kings and The Toronto Maple Leafs were entwined in a grueling playoff series that was stretching to seven games. Patrick took this time to not think about the playoffs and instead he paid attention to his wife, Michele, who was heavily pregnant with their third child and past her due date. He wanted desperately to be there for the birth having been there for the births of his previous sons, Jonathan and Frederick. The Los Angeles Kings defeated the Maple Leafs in game 7 due to the heroics of Wayne Gretzky and when Montreal began game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Kings, Michele Roy still had not gone into labor.

Patrick did not seem prepared for Game One of the finals and he was undressed easily by the Los Angles Kings who made an offensive romp of the affair. How could a Wayne Gretzky led offense lose to a defensively suspect Montreal Team in the finals? On top of that Montreal’s power play was a dead one, they were 0 for their last 32 and that was never a good sign for a team that was in the playoffs. The Kings seemed to have the momentum.

Soon after game one Michele Roy was admitted to the hospital with labor pains and after a twelve hour ordeal, Patrick witnessed the birth of his third child, a daughter, Jana. Patrick was euphoric to have a daughter and his nerves were considerably better as he entered game two.

Roy had not played badly at all in game two but it didn’t seem to matter as with 1:45 left in the game and the Canadiens were trailing 2-1. Since 1966 no teams had ever won the Stanley Cup after trailing 2-0 in the series.

Desperate for anything, Coach Demers remembered some of his players telling him that they suspected LA defenseman Marty McSorley was carrying an illegally curved stick. He told Montreal Captain Guy Carbonneau to do it.

Stick checks are nothing unusual. Patrick Roy himself has been subjected to numerous stick and jersey checks since the beginning of his career by opposing coaches who were wary of his gear. Players are told over and over by their coaches in the playoffs that if they think the stick they’re carrying may not be legal than to change it rather than invite possible disaster. McSorley, apparently had not received that memo.

McSorley’s stick turned out to be illegal and the Kings were assessed a penalty. On top of that, Demers pulled Roy to create a 6 on 4 power play. Thirty two seconds later, the Habs ended their 0-32 drought on the power play and scored the tying goal in game two sending the Forum crowd into ecstasy as dancing ghosts flitted across the screen of the jumbo tron.

Fifty two seconds into overtime Montreal won the game. It was their eighth straight overtime win and the team was flirting with a new NHL record.

“We didn’t mind going into overtime,” says Roy, “I knew my teammates were going to score goals if I gave them some time. My concentration was at such a high level. My mind was right there. I felt fresh, like I could stop everything.”

The Canadiens took the series back to Los Angeles tied at one a piece and then won game three in overtime to make it nine straight OT wins.

“Before game 4 of the 1993 Stanley Cup finals,” Jacques Demers remembers, “Patrick Roy told me and his Montreal Canadiens teammates that he wouldn’t give up more than two goals. If we could score three, we would win. He didn’t promise a shut out. He didn’t promise to win the game by himself. He told us if we would get three goals, he would do the rest.”

“Patrick Roy is a guy who always backs up what he says,” former teammate John LeClair said of that time, “and it gave us a big boost to hear him say that.”
There was a mutual trust built in that locker room between the skaters and the goaltender that Jacques Demers described simply as confidence in each other. “In 1993, my Montreal players believed that if they made a mistake or had a breakdown, Number 33 would bail them out. That allowed our players to take chances, to play aggressively.”

At the same time, Patrick Roy was confident that if he did all he could his team would reciprocate with the game winner.

It was a magic formula as game four stretched deep into overtime tied at 2-2. The Kings were crowded at Roy’s goal crease and Patrick made a brilliant stop on Kings forward Luc Robitaille to continue his overtime shut out streak. As Kings forward Tomas Sandstrom skated past Roy, Patrick grinned and winked, looking no more out of sorts than a kid goofing off at a pond hockey game. Soon after, Montreal scored the overtime game winner.

The wink became instant folklore for the press and fans. The press played it over and over again to a hungry audience. It was proof, Roy’s critics said, of how truly arrogant and cocky an SOB Roy is.

“Always Sandstrom is in my crease, bothering me, hitting me when I have the puck,” Roy explained, “When I made the save on Robitaille, Sandstrom hit me. So I winked. I wanted to show him I’d be tough. That I was in control.”

It was the end of the Kings hopes. Montreal won Game five in regulation to claim the Stanley Cup and celebrate its 100^th birthday. It was fitting perhaps that one of the oldest teams in NHL history should bring the cup home on this historic occasion.

With a 16-4 playoff record, and an unprecedented shut out streak of 96 minutes and 39 seconds, Patrick Roy was awarded with the Conn Smythe trophy. It was the second time in his career he had won it and he joined Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux in a select group of players who had won it twice. No one had ever won it three times.

“When Patrick Roy makes a promise,” teammate Mike Keane said that night, “He keeps it….He said he was going to shut the door tonight and he did.”