I covered the 1994-95 NHL season for the New York Daily News.
It was the 48-game season that began on January 20, 1995 after the first NHL lockout with the New York Rangers raising their first Stanley Cup banner in 54 years, and ended the night the New Jersey Devils won their first Stanley Cup.
I covered the Devils as they earned the Eastern Conference's fifth seed in that abbreviated regular season by going 10-5-3 in their last 18 games.
After the Devils walloped the Boston Bruins (in five), the Pittsburgh Penguins (in five), the Philadelphia Flyers (in six) and the Western Conference Champion Detroit Red Wings (four straight) there was much chatter that this was not a legitimate Stanley Cup champion because of the shortened season.
Nonsense then. And it would be nonsense now to suggest that if the NHL plays an abbreviated schedule, the Stanley Cup tournament will be tainted.
Whatever happens to the season, and in 1994-95 the conferences only played among themselves to limit travel and keep rivalries hot, the playoff season should not and will not be altered. And as we all have seen over the years, the four-round road to the Stanley Cup is the toughest road for any pro team to travel for any title.
So there is time for the NHL and NHLPA to settle this current mess. As long as they can find common ground over the next 4-6 weeks, we can salvage a credible regular season to nominate playoff teams for the real season, the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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