It Happened at the Coliseum … on MAY 14th

32 years ago tonight (1983) The Isles took a stranglehold on their fourth straight Stanley Cup, scoring 4 unanswered goals in the third period, to break a 1-1 tie and defeat the Edmonton Oilers 5-1. The win gave the Isles a 3-game-to-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

Anders Kallur scored with just 19 seconds to play in the first period to give the Isles the lead, but Jarri Kurri scored on a power play at 1:05 of the second period to knot the game.

It stayed that way until the third period, when Bob Bourne broke the tie at 5:11.  The fans were still celebrating when Ken Morrow doubled the lead 70 seconds later.  The Isles maintained the two goal advantage until late in the third, when Duane Sutter scored  at 16:23; brother Brent added a power play tally with 18 seconds to play for the final margin of victory.  Each Sutter assisted on the other’s goal.

The game showed the depth of the Isles – as 5 different Islanders scored, and 10 Islanders had assists.

And then of course, there was Billy Smith, who told the NY Times’ Kevin (Paul) Dupont: “The more (the Oilers) talk about running me, the harder I play.  The more they talk, the madder I get.  They’ve done a lot of things in this series that has gotten people made – including me.”  Smith had been involved in both a slashing incident and had been spear by Dave Lumley in the two games in Edmonton.

“Number 1, you’ve got to look at Smith”, said Bobby Bourne. “The saves he’s making now, well, he wasn’t making them during the regular season.”   There was a reason that Smitty had the reputation of being the greatest money goaltender of all-time.

Here are some highlights with Jiggs and Eddie:




Don Gould was as the game for NBC-4.

Also on this date: (1981) - Denis Potvin’s second goal of the game, a power play tally, broke a 3-3 tie at the 8:00 mark of the third period as the Isles went on to a 6-3 win in game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final with Minnesota.  Mike Bossy also scored twice while Potvin finished with 4 points (2 goals, 2 assists) as the Isles took a 2-0 lead in the series.

And in Pittsburgh… (1993) – David Volek scored at 5:16 of overtime as the Islanders dethroned the two-time Champion Penguins with a 4-3 victory to win the series in 7 games.  The Penguins had rallied for 2 goals in the final 4 minutes to force overtime, but the Isles won the Patrick Division playoff championship on Volek’s goal.  The win, the Isles’ 8^th straight in overtime, raised their all-time playoffOT record to 29-7.  The Isles wouldn’t win again in overtime until this past April 19^th (Tavares :15 of OT vs. Washington) and have not won a playoff series since.

Here's the complete game, as called by Jiggs and Eddie (Skip to about 2:30:00 for the winning goal):

Here's a highlight package, from an NHL Network show -- this audio is from the Hockey Night in Canada.  Chris Cuthbert called the play-by-play  -- he now has another place in Islander history as he called the final game the Isles ever played at the Coliseum - game 6 vs. Washington.



Here's the highlight package from that last Coliseum home game -- it's somewhat painful 19 days later -- it's not going to be any better 19 weeks, 19 months or 19 years later.



All-time, the Isles played two playoff games on May 14th at the Coliseum; they compiled a 2-0 playoff record on this date at 1255 Hempstead Turnpike in Uniondale.