by Grant Fuhr
In the Sabres dressing room, Grant tried to explain his extraordinary record in the games that meant the most. “I think I enjoy it more than anybody else,” he told reporters. “Some guys seem to get a little bit uptight, a little bit nervous. I find it to be a little bit more of a challenge, because everybody picks their game up … I look forward to this time of year.”
And the Sabres needed it. Despite the scoring exploits of Pat LaFontaine (148 points, 95 assists), Russian phenom Alexander Mogilny (127 points, 76 goals in 77 games) and Grant’s former Memorial Cup nemesis Dale Hawerchuk (96 points, 80 assists), the Sabres of 1993 were not a team to be feared come playoff time. At the end of a mediocre season, they’d dropped their final seven games to wind up 23 points back of Boston in the Adams Division. To make matters worse, unlike typical Muckler teams, the Sabres were heavy on scoring but short on defensive talent—never a good formula heading into the meat grinder of the NHL playoffs.
In the Bruins the Sabres faced a team that had won 51 games and allowed 29 fewer goals than Buffalo. Led by Ray Bourque, Cam Neely and Adam Oates, and still featuring Grant’s old partner Andy Moog in net, the Bruins were the trendy pick to emerge from the Wales Conference to play in the Stanley Cup final. But someone forgot to tell Grant Fuhr. When the lefty with the lightning hands was working his magic, none of the statistics mattered. After a surprising 5–4 OT win in Game 1 on a goal by Buffalo’s Bob Sweeney, Grant was unbeatable in Game 2, pitching a shutout that silenced the Bruins’ baying crowd. He made 34 saves, several of them of the spectacular variety. Bruins head coach Brian Sutter, who’d battled Grant as a player with St. Louis, was grudging in his praise. “If Fuhr’s not standing on his ear, we win. He’s a world-class goalie. What can you do?” The dramatic victory upped his playoff record to 76–32 while running his personal post-season record to 3–0 at Boston Garden.
No wonder Lafontaine gushed, “He’s the best goalie I’ve ever faced, the best I’ve ever seen, and he’s playing better now than he ever has. I’m glad he’s on our side.” Grant just shrugged. “This is my time of year,” he told SI. “You play 84 games to get to the playoffs, so you might as well enjoy them once you get here.”
The chances of Grant ever playing in another playoff game, let alone shutting out the mighty Bruins in the hostile bear pit of the Garden, had seemed remote as he headed to the 1990 Edmonton Oilers training camp. Bill Ranford’s play had been wonderful in the previous spring’s Cup run, and the Edmonton media were saying that, with Ranford on board, Grant was too much bother with his injuries and side issues. Still, Glen Sather preferred to wait before making a move. Grant’s 60-game suspension had given Sather a temporary reprieve from the decision in the fall of 1990, but when the All-Star did finally return late in 1991 to play inspired hockey, Sather realized the time had come to make a decision on his goaltending situation. Following Ranford’s MVP performance at the Canada Cup in September, it seemed obvious who had a future in Edmonton and who would be moving on. Grant was still young at 28, but he had experienced a decade’s worth of NHL hockey (including long post-seasons) and multiple injuries in that time—never mind the supposed toll from his party lifestyle. Four years younger, Ranford seemed so much more youthful than Fuhr in the eyes of fans and media. Plus, he had plenty of tread left on his tires, having been a starter for only two of his years in the NHL since 1986. And Ranford wouldn’t need to be paid like Grant—a huge consideration in Peter Pocklington’s financially stressed world.
Grant:
With Billy playing great you could see that the team was starting to change. The writing was on the wall. You just didn’t know when it was going to happen, and I never really thought it would happen right away the next year. So I went to training camp, thought that camp was going fine, the team looked good and such. Never saw a trade coming yet.
Despite Grant’s optimism, things were happening behind the scenes. As training camp loomed, Sather had received an offer he couldn’t refuse from his old Calgary rival Cliff Fletcher, now the GM in Toronto. Looking to turn the Maple Leafs’ fortunes around in the wake of owner Harold Ballard’s death, Fletcher needed to make a bold move. While several teams had indicated interest in Grant, Toronto’s package of players was the most attractive. (Plus it moved Grant out of the Western Conference and limited the chances of revenge—they’d all seen enough of Gretzky by that point.) So on September 19, 1991, the Maple Leafs acquired Fuhr from Edmonton along with Glenn Anderson and Craig Berube. In exchange, Fletcher surrendered Luke Richardson, Scott Thornton, Peter Ing and Vincent Damphousse.
Grant:
We were playing an exhibition game in Ottawa, and Glennie Anderson, Craig Berube and I had the day off and went golfing. We all got traded together while we were on the golf course. But if you had to go somewhere, Toronto was pretty cool. As a kid, I grew up as a Leafs fan, because you either had Toronto or Montreal on TV, and I used to love watching Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk play goal for the Leafs. So if I had to be traded, I thought it was a great place to go.
When asked how he could trade a goalie of Grant’s calibre in the prime of his career, Sather admitted that the move was painful but necessary. “I’m sorry to see players like Grant and Glenn go, but I have to think in terms of the future of the Edmonton Oilers,” he said. “We’re getting some incredible young talent in return, and this team will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.”
Some were shocked that it was Cliff Fletcher who had nabbed Grant. He had, after all, spent many years trying to beat the nimble goalie and the Oilers in the Battle of Alberta. But it would not be the last time that a coach or general manager who had been victimized by Grant in the past would reach out to acquire him.
Grant:
I had a lot of respect for Cliff even though his teams in Calgary were always trying to beat us in Edmonton. Cliff was a nice man to deal with. Very straightforward, very honest, fun guy to be around. And he said flat out, “We don’t have a good hockey team.” I didn’t realize at the time of the trade that it was quite as bad as it was, but he was right. It wasn’t a very good hockey team. After my experience in Victoria and then Edmonton, I just didn’t realize what a change it was to go from a really good team to a not very good team. For instance, being in Edmonton as long as I was, you never had to worry about reading off different defencemen. As soon as I got to Toronto it was a whole new group: now you’ve got to try and figure out what everybody’s thinking.
Going from a five-time championship team to the sad-sack Leafs was like going from the NHL penthouse to its outhouse. In the final years under Ballard, the Leafs had become a bad joke, drifting as an organization according to the doddering owner’s latest whims. Coaches and general managers came and went (at one point Ballard even promoted his public relations man, Gord Stellick, to be the team’s general manager). After recycled GM Punch Imlach engineered the Lanny McDonald trade to Colorado in 1979, Toronto did not tally another winning record until 1992–93. They missed the playoffs six times, finished above fourth in their division only once, and won just two playoff series in those dozen years.
Lack of solid goaltending became one of many glaring weaknesses for the newly hired Fletcher to address in 1991. He knew better than almost anyone what he was getting in Grant, and Toronto arguably hadn’t picked up a goalie with such a Hall of Fame resumé since Jacques Plante in 1970. Despite the recent bumps in the road, Grant was still a world-class goalie in Fletcher’s eyes, and his gamble on Grant was a much-needed shot in the arm to the Leafs—who were coming off another disastrous season in which they finished with the second-worst record in the league. Furthermore, they’d already seen GM Floyd Smith waste their first-round pick on a misbegotten trade for the Devils’ Tom Kurvers (New Jersey took Hall of Fame selection Scott Niedermayer with the pick).
Grant welcomed the challenge in Toronto with his usual wry sense of humour. When asked by reporters to compare the volume of shots he faced in Toronto to those in Edmonton, he quipped, “Well, at le
ast it’s a good way to break in equipment.”
Toronto took some getting used to off the ice as well.
Grant:
It’s completely different marketing-wise in Toronto than it is in Edmonton. The number of reporters and TV stations following you each and every day is amazing. There aren’t many cities you can go where you get report cards for practice in the paper. I actually got a kick out of it.
Cushioning the blow of the trade to such a circus was the financial reward of moving from impecunious Edmonton to a team with money to spend. With salaries across the NHL jumping, Grant was finally able to cash in on his status as a top goalie.
Grant:
When I got to Toronto, Cliff wanted to sit down and do a new deal. And all of a sudden, I got a million dollars a year. After all the conflict in Edmonton with Glen [Sather] over money, this just happened so easily.
Though economic security had finally arrived, success on the ice was a little harder to find in Toronto. Pegged to reverse the Leafs’ defensive woes in 1991–92, Grant did in fact lower the team’s goals-against slightly, and in response, Toronto’s record in the Norris Division improved by 10 points in the standings (from 57 to 67). Armed with his new deal, Grant played the workhorse role Fletcher had envisioned for him. Despite a series of nagging ailments, he was the clear No. 1 goalie, appearing in 65 games while posting a 3.66 GAA and a 25–33–2 record (these numbers despite a 12–1 loss in Pittsburgh in which coach Tom Watt left him in net for every goal). Those critiquing the Leafs that season knew the problems did not lie with their newly acquired goalie, and that the fifth place finish in the division was due squarely to a puny scoring attack. The only team with a worse offence in 1991–92 was the expansion San Jose Sharks.
To remedy the non-existent offence, Fletcher engineered a dramatic mid-season acquisition of his former Flames star Doug Gilmour in a 10-player deal with Calgary on January 2, 1992. The trade was the largest in NHL history, sending Gary Leeman and four others to Alberta for Gilmour, Jamie Macoun, Ric Nattress, Kent Manderville and Rick Wamsley. The boost from the leadership of Gilmour—who was about to become the most popular Leaf of the decade—improved the club after an awful start. But it was not enough to gain a berth in the post-season. Toronto still finished three points back of fourth-place Minnesota in the Norris, and for the first time since starting junior hockey, Grant was forced to miss out on his best time of the year.
Grant:
We still should have made the playoffs that year. That hurt a little bit, because it was my first miss of the post-season. That was a new experience. But you could see with Doug and the other new guys Cliff was bringing in that things were getting better.
It was a fun year. Andy and I roomed together for the first part of the year in Toronto, which is always entertaining. The drive to the rink every morning was a little longer than what I was used to in Edmonton. Twenty minutes to get you across the city in Edmonton, 20 minutes just to get you to Tim Horton’s in Toronto.
The early end to the Maple Leafs’ season allowed Grant to take his first major crack at playing pro golf, however. He teed it up at the Morningstar course in Parksville, British Columbia, to try to gain his tour playing card on the Canadian Professional Golf Tour (now the PGA Canada Tour). A five handicap at the time, Grant had visions of playing pro golf when his NHL career ended. Unfortunately, his first taste of the Tour was sour; he shot a two-day total of 174 to miss the cut.
Grant:
What bothered me was that I was nervous that first day on the Tour. I was surprised by that after all the golf I played, and the big hockey games. I felt better the second day, but by then it was too late. Still, it was fun to see how we stacked up against the guys who made a living at it. I learned a lot.
The Leafs would find resurgence under Gilmour’s inspired leadership the following season. The future hadn’t looked so bright for the team in decades—only Grant would not get to revel in the Toronto hockey renaissance. A series of injuries restricted his availability, and through the start of February he had played only 29 games for the reborn Leafs.
Grant:
I’d say that you’re usually only 100 percent on the first day of training camp. That’s it. After that there’s always something that hurts. But you adjust to it and get used to it. I think my style contributed a bit to the injuries I had through those years: using strictly reflexes and throwing myself all over the place probably hurt the shoulder and knee ailments a bit.
The injuries opened a door in Toronto for rookie Felix Potvin and, eventually, closed a door for Grant. While he would begin 1992–93 as the definite No. 1 in the Toronto net, the stellar play of “Felix the Cat” during Fuhr’s absences convinced Toronto it could do without the injury-plagued 30-year-old.
Grant remained confident he could regain the top spot in Toronto from Potvin in the long term. But, needing a winger to work with Gilmour, Fletcher decided to hedge his bets with Grant. Although the team was prospering on the ice, ownership complications in the wake of Harold Ballard’s death were forcing Fletcher to consider players on big contracts. Simply put, Grant was making too much to be a backup goalie. Barely two years after Fletcher had acquired him, Grant was trade bait again.
Grant:
So just as we had learned the traffic part of getting around in Toronto, Cliff decided to make the deal with Buffalo in February of 1993. The Leafs were missing a couple pieces, and Cliff felt he could use me to get them from Muck [John Muckler] in Buffalo. I knew they were getting better, and it was tough to leave just as the team was about to get back in the playoffs. As it turned out they went a long way that year, to the semi-finals. That was the year Wayne and the Kings beat them in that seven-game series.
In fact, in the 1993 playoffs, Toronto would barely miss on the team’s first trip to the Stanley Cup final since 1967 (and a rematch with Montreal, whom they beat that year for their last Cup to date). But just as he’d played foil to Edmonton, Gretzky and his Kings scored a controversial win in seven games over Toronto in the Campbell Conference final. A non-call on a high stick by No. 99 on Gilmour remains a sore spot to this day for victory-starved Leafs fans.
As for Grant, the idea of No. 31 in blue and gold had piqued the interest of an old hockey connection. Sensing opportunity, John Muckler and the Buffalo Sabres pounced on the chance to shore up their own crease when they found out Grant was available. Buffalo acquired Fuhr on February 2, 1993, in what would, in retrospect, turn out to be an overpayment: Dave Andreychuk (who finished the year a 54-goal scorer thanks to 25 scores in 31 games playing alongside Gilmour), former all-star netminder Daren Puppa and a first rounder (respectable Swedish blueliner Kenny Jonsson) for Grant and a draft pick. But Muckler had coached Grant for eight years in the Oilers organization, and his word, more than anything else, convinced Buffalo GM Gerry Meehan the costly deal was worth the risk. “The price was high,” Muckler said, “but we got what we needed.”
Grant:
So, another trade. It was okay, because Muck was there. I’d played for him in Edmonton, which made it an easier transition. I lived in Toronto for the first two and a half, three weeks after the trade, drove back and forth to Buffalo, getting comfortable. But Buffalo had a good team—they actually had a really good team there. That helped the move as well.
While Andreychuk helped vault the Leafs to their best year in decades, Grant’s impact wasn’t as dramatic as the Sabres had envisioned. They went 12–16–4 in the rest of the season, with Grant sporting a 3.47 GAA and .891 save percentage in 28 appearances (while going 11–15–2). His backup, the Czech wonder Dominik Hasek, actually put up superior numbers, but he had no track record in the post-season.
Grant did play excellent hockey in stretches for his old friend Muckler. The Sabres were going to need it against the Bruins, their first-round opponent, who were a perfect 8–0 to finish the season, landing just behind Pittsburgh for the best record in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. Buffalo, meanwhile, had not won a playoff series sinc
e 1983, and its fans had often been the victims of a post-season goaltending letdown despite reputable starters such as Tom Barrasso, Jacques Cloutier and Puppa. Fans were skeptical that this year, with an aging goalie—even one with Grant’s pedigree—was going to be anything different.
But Grant had not earned his reputation as the best playoff goalie of his generation by accident. Summoning up his best form from the Edmonton days, he found his A game at just the right time for the showdown with first-place Boston in the Adams Division semi-final. If Grant needed added incentive, it was no doubt provided by the fact that he was facing his former stablemate Moog. (It ended up being the only playoff series in which they played every game against each other.) Grant’s most vital contribution came in the Game 2 shutout in Boston: a 34-save contest in which Grant seemed to get into the heads of the Bruins shooters.