33 Years Ago in Leafland; May 3, 1987

Spring of 1987. The Maple Leafs went on an improbable playoff run. They got to within a game of meeting the mighty Edmonton Oilers in the Campbell Conference Finals. I was a 15 year-old hockey mad kid enjoying the fortunes of my favourite team. What better time than now to look back at this memorable time of my youth and Leafs history.

"I don't want to make any excuses, but I'd like to have a shot at them again with Fergus, Frycer, Kotsopoulos, Leeman and Osborne in the lineup. No team in the NHL can have five players of that calibre missing from their lineup no matter what you have on the farm team," exclaimed Leaf coach John Brophy, clearly making excuses. In addition to these injuries, Rick Vaive and his damaged hand did not play the last two periods of Game 7, Wendel Clark was at about 50% with various ailments and Borje Salming was obviously fatigued and skating on one good leg thanks to a charley horse. Brophy may have had a good point.
Nevertheless, Detroit defeated Toronto 3-0 before 19,729 at Joe Louis Arena to advance to the Campbell Conference Final against Edmonton. It was the second straight home shutout for Wings goalie Glen Hanlon, who turned away all 30 Leaf shots. Terry Johnson, who replaced the injured Kotsopoulos made a mistake that turned into Detroit's opening goal by Adam Oates three minutes into the game. Brophy pretty much went with four defencemen after that; Al Iafrate with Salming and Todd Gill with Rick Lanz.

Taking a 1-0 lead into the second period, Detroit put the Leafs away withe two goals in just over a minute before the period was half over. Mike O'Connell sprung Steve Yzerman on a breakaway and the budding superstar converted successfully, then a minute later as Steve Thomas failed to clear the Leaf zone, Oates found Darren Veitch open and he fired a low shot past Ken Wregget. Glen Hanlon did the rest.
After the game, the last two players on the ice were Wendel Clark and his cousin Joey Kocur. Clark said, "I just said 'great series' and that he had done a good job. I'm glad he got the opportunity to show what he could do. There'll be a lot of beer drunk this summer over this series." The Leafs top players simply stopped producing after they won the first two games of the series. In the final five matches Russ Courtnall and Peter Ihnacak had zero points, Steve Thomas had 2 assists, Vaive had one assist. Amazingly, Mike Allison led the Leafs with 5 points in those last 5 games, Clark had 4 himself. Ken Wregget, despite losing 4 of the last 5 games, still managed a respectable 3.11 GAA and .893 Save Pct.
Brophy stated, "There's not a player in that locker room who didn't play his guts out for me." As for winning coach Jacques Demers, he seemed almost as happy that Brophy came over and shook his hand after the game, "Broph showed a lot of class tonight. I mean that." Glen Hanlon summed it up with, "We just didn't quit. It's hard to hate anyone right now." He added, "I don't want any credit. Give the defence the credit. they blocked shot after shot. They covered up on loose pucks. There were no second shots."

Brophy concluded his analysis, "It's over for us. We were in this situation again, and didn't get past it to the final four (referring to last year, losing to St. Louis in the second round). There are going to be some changes. After our injured players come back healthy, we certainly still need a big strong defenceman and a big strong right winger. We'll do everything we can to get them, probably through trades."

And so, the dream of a young Leaf fan are dashed. The chance to see my favourite player compete against (and likely dismantle) my favourite team has passed. Maybe, in the not too distant future we will see this come to pass. Can you imagine a Conference Final pitting my hard-working Maple Leafs against the high-flying Wayne Gretzky? That'd be cool.