"That Pittsburgh team was beyond loaded," center Ray Ferraro said. "That was a team. Like, holy crap. If you looked at the two teams side by side on the whiteboard, you would laugh. You'd be like, 'You mean that team on the left's going to beat that team on the right?' There was zero people that picked our team to beat Pittsburgh, and if anybody did, they were out to lunch."
Al Arbour, the Hall of Fame coach of the Islanders, didn't have a star-studded lineup. But he did have veteran leaders in goal, with Healy, and up front, with forwards Patrick Flatley, Steve Thomas and Ferraro. His defense was mostly young, sparked by rookies Darius Kasparaitis, who was 19 years old, and Vladimir Malakhov, who was 24.
So how could the Islanders possibly defeat the Penguins, who were seeking their third straight Stanley Cup championship? Arbour challenged his players prior to Game 1.
"He asked us individually, starting with Pat Flatley, 'Can you tie one shift against Mario Lemieux? I don't need you to score, just tie the shift,'" Healy said. "And then the next guy. … The exercise went on."
"The hair was standing on the back of my neck. It was amazing," Pilon said. "When he would do his pregame speech, you were almost frothing at the mouth. It was unbelievable how he could get you motivated and focused. It was something to feel and be part of."
The Islanders trailed 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, but Thomas scored two goals and two assists in a 7-5 win in Game 6 at Nassau Coliseum.
"To my recollection, we didn't have flights back to Pittsburgh for Game 7; they booked them the day we had to go," Ferraro said. "We were all flying commercial. We're all jammed in middle seats and stuff. It's a short flight, but still."
David Volek, a forward who scored eight goals in 56 games during the regular season and hadn't scored in the playoffs, gave New York a 2-1 lead at 6:10 of the third period in Game 7. Forward Benoit Hogue made it 3-1 less than three minutes later, and the Islanders appeared to be on their way to the conference final, especially after Lemieux and New York defenseman Uwe Krupp took coincidental slashing penalties with 4:05 remaining.