17 Years ago today in Canucks (and Leafs) history.



May 22. Game Four of the Western Conference Final. Canucks leading two games to one. No, not today, we're talking 1994. The Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs were battling for the right to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.


After over 57 minutes of scoreless play in game four, Cliff Ronning finally beat Felix Potvin. In the Toronto Star the next day, Damien Cox described the winning goal,"Ronning skipped past Dmitri Mironov just inside the Toronto blueline, dumped the puck off to Sergio Momesso, then simply skated past an inattentive Rob Pearson towards the net." Ronning took the return pass from Momesso and beat Potvin for the winner.


"Serg and I like the give-and-go game," Ronning explained. "We're definitely not superstars on our line. We work hard whenever we get out there." Leaf coach Pat Burns added, "Cliff Ronning found a little opening and that ended it. There wasn't much room out there and whoever found the opening won it. they got one good one and put it away".


Pavel Bure added an empty-netter to seal the 2-0 win. Both goalies were solid, but McLean had to be sharper over the course of the game. He was tested in the second minute when Chris Govedaris broke in from the right boards, but easily handled the shot (probably because it was from Chris Govedaris). In the second period Mike Krushelnyski and Bill Berg both shot wide on scoring chances while killing penalties.


Vancouver would of course wrap up the series the following game with double overtime, 4-3 winner off the stick of Greg Adams...a game which I had the nonpleasure of attending.



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