Posted in Bruins History May 13th, 2007
Flashback 1990: Bruins sweep Caps en route to Stanley Cup finals
So this was it. The last time the Bruins won a conference final to play for the Stanley Cup. And they did it with with style too…a four game sweep of the Capitals which included a turn-the-other-sheek style of play to counter the Caps’ dirty tactics. Granted, Dino Ciccarelli and Kevin Hatcher were gone but still, a conference championship is a conference championship.
Over the course of time, you tend to forget certain bad events when they’re overshadowed relatively quickly by even more catastrophic news. Bob Beers’ broken leg was one of them. I vaguely remember when it happened, but I definitely recall the following season’s playoffs where Cam Neely received the dirty hit from that @$&@! Ulf Samuelsson that effectively hastened the end of Neely’s career. If that hit on Neely didn’t occur, I think the Beers incident would be a little more prominent in my memory.
Unfortunately, John Carter never would get to hoist the Cup, eventually going to the Sharks and then fading away in the minors until his retirement after the ‘94-’95 season.
As always, the story is courtesy of Factiva.
NEELY SCORES TWO; BRUINS SWEEP OUT PUNCHLESS CAPS
Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff
939 words
10 May 1990
The Boston Globe
© 1990 New York Times Company. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.LANDOVER, Md. - No, it’s not getting easier for the Bruins. They may have swept their way out of D.C.’s dirty suburbia last night, and into the Stanley Cup finals, but it took a broken leg to Bob Beers and more self-control and tighter lips than 12,000 Trappist Monks to get them there.
Even with Beers lost early in the second period, the Bruins played solid, unyielding defense and rode a pair of Cam Neely goals (Nos. 11 and 12 of the playoffs) to another victory, 3-2, over the Washington Capitals for a 4-0 sweep of the Patrick Division champions.
The triumph, their fifth straight in the playoffs, carried the Bruins into the Cup finals for the second time in three years. They will play either Chicago or ‘88 co-finalist Edmonton in a best-of-seven round that will begin in Boston Tuesday or next Friday, depending on when the Oilers and Blackhawks — now tied, 2-2 — wrap up their semifinal set.
Again, the Bruins withstood the Caps’ cheap shots, including Tim Bergland’s leg-breaking and Dale Hunter’s violent slashing, to rub out the punchless — as in scoring — Capitals. They couldn’t be induced into fights, they barely looked at the Caps the wrong way (if that’s possible) and they ran their post-season record to a league-best 12-4.
It was Boston’s first series sweep since 1979, and the Bruins once more have a chance to win the Cup for the first time since 1972. They had that same opportunity in ‘88, but went for a four-game flop at the feet of the Oilers and the winged skates of Wayne Gretzky.
This time, they hope, will be different. Gretzky is gone, and so, perhaps, is the Bruins’ naivete.
“Two years ago was a unique situation,” said Boston captain Ray Bourque, who played a down-scaled offensive role in the series with the Caps and quarterbacked a defense that allowed but three goals over the last three games. “In ‘88, we’d beaten Montreal for the first time in 45 years, and the team was buzzing. We figured, no matter what happened, we’d had a pretty good year.
“This year, there is no satisfaction unless we win the whole thing.”
The Caps, minus their top offensive threat, Dino Ciccarelli, and their best blue-liner, Kevin Hatcher, played like a team that wouldn’t be satisfied unless it sent Boston out of the playoffs in body bags.
As it was, Beers went off on a stretcher early in the second period, his femur badly broken — in what team physician Ashby Moncure described as “a freak — something I haven’t seen in 21 years of hockey.” Beers remained overnight at a D.C. hospital and will require extensive surgery. He should be released to fly back to Boston tomorrow.
In Game 3, of course, Boston’s Craig Janney was knocked nearly unconscious by a blind-side flying cross-check by Hunter. Hunter the Barbarian was at it again in Game 4, two-handing his former Caps’ roommate, Garry Galley, with a vicious slash.
For breaking Beers’ leg, Bergland received a two-minute tripping minor. Hunter sat out a deuce, too, for slashing.
The NHL’s officiating is beyond criticism now. It can best be described as high comedy. The skating stand-up man last night was Denis Morel. They should take away their whistles and give them a cigarette, an open microphone and a lounge in the corner of the arena, where fans could walk up between periods and catch their act.
Outrageous? Maybe, but perhaps Rodney Dangerfield could be their coach. He has a load of hockey jokes and gets no respect, either. Someone should get these guys more help, by way of a second referee on the ice, or give them tools like video replay. Players are getting hurt, and no one seems to care.
The Bruins batted home win No. 4 in similar fashion to Games 2 and 3. They got the lead early, with John Carter footing in a Bobby Carpenter relay with the night only 53 seconds old. By the end of the first period, with Geoff Courtnall off for elbowing, Neely made it 2-0 with his first of the night.
The Caps closed to 2-1 late in the second, with Nick Kypreos burying a backhander that he followed with an eyes-closed twirl as he held his head toward the heavens. It appeared as though he was thanking a higher authority for ending some seven-year drought. Perhaps he was.
Neely knocked home the 3-1 lead only 2:08 into the third on a Brian Propp pass of a lifetime. Kneeling in the left corner, he one-handed a backhand relay to Neely in the slot. The Caps cut it to 3-2 when Hunter knocked in a John Druce pass at 9:33. But Washington would get only two more shots all night, and finish at a 17-14 disadvantage.
It might all have been different had Ciccarelli and Hatcher played. Chances are, though, the Caps would have been similarly mean-spirited.
It’s not getting easier. It’s getting more exciting, dirtier and dirtier, and closer and closer.
“You know, I’ve never seen the Cup, not in person, or anything,” said Carter. “It would kinda be neat if the first time I saw it was the first time I held it.”
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