The Return
By zach weinstock
It was tough to blame outsiders for not buying into the 2001-02 Islanders right away.
Sure, there were some new faces, but how much difference could a handful of outcast players and a novice head coach really make?
After all, the 2000-01 Islander roster contained only one forward – Mariusz Czerkawski – who had ever scored more than 45 points in an NHL season, leaving little mystery as to why the team finished last in the league. It would take gumption for such a club to set its sights on competing for the Stanley Cup as soon as 2001-02. But gumption was something GM Mike Milbury never lacked.
Milbury saw more in his Islanders than most. In March he declared, "There's talent there.” In May, he made fellow Massachusetts native Peter Laviolette head coach.
Young "Lavy" beat out a gaggle of veteran candidates with long NHL resumes, while his consisted of only one season as an assistant for the Boston Bruins. Even Laviolette's own team, the Bruins, passed him over.
Milbury cared not. He sauntered down to Florida for Draft Weekend in June armed with picks, prospects and a new motto, "A deal a day keeps the losses away."
On Friday veteran defenseman Adrian Aucoin was acquired from Tampa Bay. Ottawa superstar center Alexei Yashin hopped aboard on Saturday. For a Sunday encore, Milbury scored Buffalo holdout Michael Peca.
No one doubted the assets the Islanders gave up in those deals could turn into excellent players one day, which some did. But after seven straight years of missing the playoffs, few on Long Island remained willing to wait for "one day."
Thus the Islanders made clear there would be no five-year plan. This was a five-month plan, which culminated in September when the Detroit Red Wings put former Stanley Cup winning goaltender Chris Osgood on waivers and the Islanders claimed him.
"We're back in business!" Milbury exclaimed, though the pundits hardly agreed. The Hockey News pegged the new look Isles 11th in the Eastern Conference. Sports Illustrated rated them 18th in the NHL.
It's fair to say things did not play out precisely how the "experts" foresaw.
Lavy's Lads burst out of the gate 11-1-1-1, including a 9-0-1-1 sprint through October, the best opening month in Islanders history, which — for a franchise of such pedigree — is saying quite a bit.
How?
For one thing, Milbury, it turned out, was fairly correct – there was talent there.
To wit, the first hero of 2001-02 was not one of the imports, rather it was second-year Islander winger Mark Parrish, who banged in eight goals on a season-opening four-game road trip – all wins – leading to the one of the most anticipated Isles home openers in memory.
On October 13, 2001, an emotional sellout crowd swarmed the "Barn" to watch the Islanders and Red Wings stage a moving September 11th tribute followed by a moving game, which Detroit captured 5-4 in overtime. Despite the disappointing ending, the evening's takeaway was that the Nassaumen had skated inch-for-inch with a Detroit group broadly considered hockey's version of the "Dream Team." The tone was set for an exhilarating season full of wild finishes, clutch performances and big, boisterous Coliseum masses serenading their beloved upstarts as they challenged perennial power Philadelphia for Atlantic Division supremacy.
The blue line was boosted by Aucoin, who joined returning stalwarts Kenny Jonsson and Roman Hamrlik to form a laudable defense corps.
Osgood provided some of the steadiest goaltending Isles fans had seen in over a generation, tying the great Bill Smith's team record for wins in a season with 32.
Yashin was a Russian Rembrandt, painting gem after gem to the tune of 32 goals and 75 points on a rejuvenated top line with Oleg Kvasha and Czerkawski. Agile Alexei's best moments included a dazzling three-point display in the home opener against Detroit, a late game-winning strike to knock off the Stanley Cup Champion Avalanche 5-4 on Thanksgiving eve, and an overtime snapper on December 29 to clinch a theatrical 6-5 win over the Canadiens. Then there was his masterpiece, January 30, when he scored a first period hat trick on the rival Rangers in Madison Square Garden.
Yet, the most transformative addition was the team's new captain, Peca, who was awarded the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward for his work centering Parrish and fellow newcomer Shawn Bates on a line affectionately dubbed "Lucky 7s" after their uniform digits – 17, 27 and 37. The trio specialized in stopping opponents, and knew how to etch their own names on some scoresheets as well, with Peca and Parrish recording 60 points apiece, while Bates notched 52. Peca's heroics included a full-ice sprint and falling finish with nine seconds left in overtime on February 12 in Philadelphia and a game-tying backhander with 1.4 seconds to go on February 26 against Boston – both shorthanded!
Meanwhile the Coliseum was the undisputed "Place To Be." Fans even adopted that old baseball staple, "the wave," a merry shtick which lasted most of the regular season.
The Islander renaissance delighted the Nassau faithful all autumn and winter, but it wasn't until spring that the team reached its full potential. The turning point came on March 21, 2002, when Osgood stopped a penalty shot by Vancouver virtuoso Markus Naslund to preserve a 3-2 win, igniting a 10-3-1-0 regular season finish which featured late comebacks, a triumphant Coliseum victory over the Rangers, and a new cult hero, Kvasha, whose sprawling, acrobatic, split-defender overtime classic in Boston on April 4 brought his team to within one win from finally sealing their unlikely postseason berth.
"WE'RE BACK!" proclaimed t-shirts given to each of the capacity 16,234 revelers two nights later, when the surging Isles hosted the Washington Capitals in Long Island's party of the year. By night's end, fans spun those shirts through the air in celebration while the longest tenured Islanders, Steve Webb, Claude Lapointe and Kenny Jonsson, took curtain calls as the three stars of a rousing 5-4 playoff clinching victory.
"We're not just thinking about the playoffs," warned Lapointe. "We're thinking about the Stanley Cup."
It was not farfetched. The Islanders entered the 2002 postseason as the hottest team in the Eastern Conference.
If the Isles' first round matchup with the stingy Toronto Maple Leafs could be summarized in two words, those would be "fierce" and tough.”
Despite losing the first two games in Toronto, spirits remained high heading back to the Coliseum for the Isles' first playoff home game since 1994. Fans were asked to wear all white for the entire series, and they obliged, adding a cathedral aura to the postseason electricity.
"Steve Webb! - Clap Clap! - Steve Webb!" crooned the crowd as the fourth line favorite crashed into one blue sweater after another. Inspired by Webb's 11 hits, the Islanders answered an early Toronto score with six straight of their own to cut the series deficit in half.
What the 6-1 Game Three route lacked in suspense, the following evening's Game Four made up for in abundance. The Maple Leafs carried a 2-1 lead into the final seven minutes, but the Islanders flipped the script with goals 100 seconds apart, sending the building into a frenzy. Corson tied it with 3:26 remaining, but the ever-resilient Isles were awarded a penalty shot a minute later, after Bates was lassoed to the ice by former Islander captain Bryan McCabe. Unshakable Shawn shelved a wrister over star goalie Curtis Joseph's blocker to put New York ahead 4-3 and seal the eventual win.
Jonsson and Peca were injured early in Game Five, and the Isles dropped the contest, 6-3. Game Six back at the Coliseum, however, was a different story – a 5-3 Islanders win.
Although the Isles fell a shot shy in Game Seven, their accomplishment was lost on no one. In leaping from 52 points to 96, they achieved what was at the time the fourth-largest single-season turnaround in league history, in a manner which seemed unfathomable only 10 months prior.
"We took tremendous strides as a team, as an organization, as a community," summarized Coach Laviolette. "People love the Islanders."
Well, that last part has always been true. But certainly, the love was especially intense - and loud - in 2001-02.