Thinking a few nice things about the 1987-88 Boston Bruins

Friday 11/13/26

Fred Cusick loved Reggie Lemelin. I think it’s because with Lemelin the Bruins were getting big-time clutch goaltending and it'd been a while. You can hear both the respect of one who knows and the (measured) excitement of the fan in Cusick's voice when he makes the call for another fantastic Lemelin save.

Gerry Cheevers had the reputation as the Bruins' previous "money goalie," but I wonder how merited that was. Those loaded Orr-Esposito Bruins teams only won two cups, after all, and on the whole they underachieved. Plus, when they did win, it's wasn't like they were ever really pushed to the brink and needed huge stops or else.

Pete Peeters was a nice regular season goalie who had his big year in 1982-83, but that was short-lasting for him with the Bruins and despite being the goalie on Canada's 1984 Canada Cup-winning team, he wasn't a horse you rode to the end.

So Lemelin was seen as very much the guy with the upstart 1987-88 Bruins and their run to the Stanley Cup Finals. A large part of Lemelin's reputation--and what amounted to a kind of gratitude for his play, which I think we also hear in Cusick's voice--stems from his performance against the Canadiens in the playoffs that year, when the Bruins finally managed to send their long-time tormentors packing. This was huge. New Englanders had come to honestly believe it would never happen.

Ray Bourque kind of had a down year--for him--in 1987-88; that is, he dipped to the fourth postseason All-Star selection for defensemen.

Ken Linseman led that team in playoff scoring and was second to Bourque during the regular season. The Bruins relied so much on Bourque. I don't believe any other team in hockey history counted on one player as much as the Bruins did Bourque. He was supposed to be their best player in all three zones and lead them both offensively and defensively while also being on the ice for half the game.

He was responsible for most of their breakouts, and that's with the opposition trying to make him pay physically by targeting him--and his corner--on the forecheck. He was the best I ever saw at going back for the puck, peeking over his shoulder, formulating a plan in that split second, retrieving the puck, and putting his plan in motion with his skating prowess and passing ability. Beautiful to watch.

Back to Linseman: always thought highly of his game, and I think the same thing now as I watch these past games. Very heady player. Strong on face-offs. Gets nice and low. Buzzes around but also finds the pockets of space, strong skater, creative thinker out there, excellent passer. Winning player.

Bruins fans often think of Lemelin and Andy Moog as a tandem but 1986-87 was really Lemelin's year. Moog arrived late, playing in only a handful of regular season games. He got some time in the playoffs (and curiously started Game 1 of the Finals against the Edmonton Oilers; perhaps because they were his former team?), but it was Lemelin's show.

Doug Keans--who was the goalie in that 2/16/86 Bruins-North Stars game I mentioned yesterday--played 30 games during that regular season as the Bruins' back-up. Too bad he didn't get to be a part of their playoff squad. He was solid, posting a 16-11 record with a 3.26 GAA. That was a strong goals against average at the time. This was Keans' age-thirty season, and yet it was the last hockey he'd play in the NHL.

Back-up goalie discussions are always fun. I think Keans might be my personal favorite back-up. You were in capable hands when he came in, and sometimes better hands than you might have been with the starter depending on how he was going at the time. A stabilizing presence for a team, and this was a period when goalies had their individual styles, weren't down on their knees waiting to be struck with the puck as they are now. In today's hockey, the goalie gets hit with the puck because of his positioning. He's already in place, rather than reacting to a shot. Whereas, during this era, he made saves, and there is a huge difference.

Was it less effective? Okay. But it was much more exciting. You also had greater degrees of separation in terms of skill and results from goalie to goalie. One could be quite a bit better than another or quite a bit worse. During the 1983-84 campaign--that is, the year after Pete Peeters' Vezina season in which he also finished second in Hart voting to Wayne Gretzky--Keans placed ninth in voting for the Vezina. He was the back-up to Mario Lessard on the 1981-82 Los Angeles Kings, authors of the Miracle on Manchester comeback from down 5-0 against the Oilers in the third period in the playoffs that I wrote about for The Atlantic.

I think most would find it surprising that Steve Kasper had 70 points for that Bruins team. Cam Neely was their go-to goal scorer, potting 42 that year. This was when he was really growing as a player and had the the quintessential power forward thing happening, racking up the goals, wrecking people all over the ice, throwing hands. One of the most exciting players you'd ever see for a while there. Kasper actually had one more point than Neely, but Neely only played 69 games.

Balanced scoring was the Bruins' stock in trade that year, almost as this kind of throwback to the Lunch Pail A.C. Bruins of the 1970s I wrote about for Sports Illustrated. Scoring by committee. Six players had at least 20 goals, and that doesn't include Bourque, who had 17, as did Keith Crowder, whose best offensive days were behind him--he had that peak in 1985-86 with 84 points--but who was still a bruiser. A bruising Bruin.

Rick Middleton was no longer himself, unfortunately, but his presence still meant something. Geoff Courtnall was, surprisingly, nearly a point-a-game player, and then the Bruins dealt him to the Oilers and he turned around and won a Cup against his former mates.

Reed Larson didn't score his customary 20 goals from the blue line, but it remained a sight to see him uncork his monster blast of a slap shot. With the sticks those players had even the shots of the hardest shooters were traveling at a much lower rate of speed than many of the shots in any current day NHL contest, and yet, when someone like a Larson wound up, you gasped and you would never do that with, say, a Charlie McAvoy. And therein is lost something significant in my estimation. It's like Christmas becoming less magical or Saturday mornings with cartoons and a day of outdoors play awaiting.

The Bruins spent no small amount of time in the sin bin. Neely had 175 penalty minutes, Linseman 167 mostly for stick infractions (he liked carving you up), Keith Crowder had 173, Gord Kluzak, in the rare relatively healthy year for him, chipped in with 135, Courtnall got up to 108, the young, reliable plugger of a forward in Randy Burridge contributed 105, then you had Lyndon Byers with 236 (in only 53 games), and Jay Miller with 304!

The Wales Conference Finals between the B's and the New Jersey Devils went seven games and was such a representative 1980s playoff hockey series. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The Garden throbbed throughout that Game 7. The Devils were labeled a Mickey Mouse franchise only a few years before by none other than Wayne Gretzky, someone who didn't spark much offense with his words at this time the way he would with his political alignment later.

The Devils played an opportunistic, uptempo style of hockey, and looked cool doing it in those red and green uniforms. Kirk Muller was an admirable hockey player. Had a complete game. Pat Verbeek--the original, pre-Brad Marchand Little Ball of Hate--went for 46 goals that year. A twenty-one-year old Sean Burke--who would stick around forever--emerged as the guy in net over the veteran Bob Suave in the playoffs.

This was the series with Devils coach Jim Schoenfield, who took over after they had started 21-24-5 under Doug Carpenter, providing referee Don Koharski with some dining tips. The Devils finished fourth in the Patrick Division, which typically was the best balanced division in the league, and their arrival at the Conference Finals was their coming-out moment. They were basically a .500 team, but back then it always seemed like anything short of an actual Finals win was possible for at least one team, with the Bruins managed to stop their Cinderella story from unfolding any further, but it was by no means easy.

Bourque mentioned many years later that he knew the team didn't have a chance against the Oilers in the Finals, what with Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Fuhr, Anderson, Coffey. It was funny to me that he mentioned Coffey, because the rocket-fast blueliner had already been dealt to Pittsburgh by then. Bourque was speaking about his disappointment with the outcome of the 1989-90 Finals against the Oilers, when he thought the Bruins had a real shot to win the Cup, and then weren't competitive at all. Moog had a terrible series in that 1990 Final, and the triple OT loss in Game 1 seemed to take something essential out of the Bruins.

Boston sports fans--including those who were there--tend to treat this period as some form of dark times, probably because of the relative lack of championships compared to what would follow for the olde town teams, but also on account that people don't think and when they do they don't think well.

I find, too, that with how the world has become, and the constant devolution of our minds (among other things), that almost everyone has a terrible memory. They can't recall hardly anything, no matter how recent. That's the way the news cycle works, of course. That thing that was "the" thing for two days isn't recollected by a single soul, it seems, three days later.

The 1987-88 Bruins were a wonderful story, a team you loved to root for. The Bird-McHale-Parish-DJ Celtics were still fighting for championships. Their time had passed, but Boston fans didn't know it just yet. 1988 would later bring Morgan Magic for the Red Sox. You never really knew with the Patriots during this period if it'd be an up year or a down year. It was a great mix. Boston fans were lucky. Their teams were also littered with all-time greats in their sports. Bourque, Bird, Roger Clemens. These were titans. Wade Boggs. Then you had the second rank of Hall of Famers in a McHale, an Andre Tippett, a Neely.

Obviously--and something like the PIMs make it all the plainer just on the stat sheet alone-- this was a very different era for hockey than what you see now, but there was so much more variety between teams, goalies, players, styles. From division to division. Teams in the Adams didn't play like teams in the Smythe. It was significantly more enjoyable to watch and, frankly, I'd rather watch a game from this period than even the Bruins and the Canadiens going at it last night at the Garden when both teams have been playing well coming in.

It's like how I prefer to listen to Eric Dolphy than whatever plays on the sound system at the CVS, which is the same pablum that is posted about on social media and wins meaningless things like Grammy awards. It isn't because it's any good, which should be obvious if you're smarter than a stick and can actually listen and discern at all. I wasn't there for Dolphy but that has little to no bearing for me--I go to where the better and more interesting things are and I partake of them. I've always been that way. Why wouldn't I be? The more salient question perhaps is why are so few others?