The Red Wings finished that season with a record of 33-11-4 and were coached by Scotty Bowman. They sported Paul Coffey, Sergei Federov, Steve Yzerman, Dino Ciccarelli, Keith Primeau, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Viacheslav Fetisov, and Vladimir Konstantinov, of whom six were hall-of-fame players at the peak of their careers. The goaltending tandem of Chris Osgood and Mike Vernon was one of the best in the league.
My explanation for the result is as follows: one team understood something about the game itself the other did not: that teaching untalented players to perform a simple task repeatedly could beat a team that did not employ a strategy tailored to respond in kind.
It should therefore not be surprising that people best remember the “Crash Line”: Mike Peluso, Bobby Holik and Randy McKay. Peluso recorded only 90 points in 9 NHL seasons. McKay had more offensive success than Peluso, but was far from a finesse player.
The same can be said for Holik. However one wants to disagree about their careers, the playoff stat lines are damning, to say the least. McKay led the group with a goal and two assists in twenty games. Holik came next with no goals and three assists in twenty games. Peluso had one goal and no assists.
There had been a drastic and disturbing mutation of the culture of the NHL. And, it was lauded as “good defensive hockey.” Nobody understood its magnitude at the time.
The major adjustment actually came in 1994. The Devils were without a doubt the first team to use a defense-first, second and third style despite having a talented team.
Technically, the 1994 Devils were better than the 1995 Devils. They had much more scoring power, but, in tie-game situations, coach Lemaire would send out Crash Line-caliber players rather than try to score. If he sent out Stephane Richer in a 4-on-4 situation late in a game, he would be paired with a defensive forward. Watch the Rangers-Devils series from 1994, and try to contradict me. You won’t have an easy time.
When the Devils discovered that they could employ this strategy and cut down on their pricey scoring forwards, keeping only three or four, they scored a mighty blow against the league, which had to deal with teams emulating the 1995 Devils for a decade. When teams noticed the Devils winning without much offensive finesse – and that it could only be fought with a similar strategy -- they copied what they saw. It was “countering” without the counter-attack. It saved money and yielded victory.
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