Gretzky's Six Degrees In '93

As the Montreal Canadiens prepare to battle for the first time since 1993 as they face the Tampa Bay Lightning tomorrow night, there have been countless comparisons between this year's squad and the 1993 Canadiens team that stands as the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup. In thinking about that 1993 series where Les Habitants met the Los Angeles Kings, it's rather remarkable how many fingerprints Wayne Gretzky had on that Stanley Cup Final. As we know, Gretzky played in the final series against the Canadiens, but his fingerprints are all over that Canadiens team as well!

This story actually starts while Wayne Gretzky was still a long-term part of the Edmonton Oilers, so I'm going to take you through a winding path that will stretch across nine years of hockey information where Wayne Gretzky's name appears over and over again with all points leading to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. It's not six degrees of separation here, but it's rather amazing how many players played in the 1993 Final who were much closer to Gretzky in terms of degrees of separation.

We'll start back in 1984 when the QMJHL's Hull Olympiques are being coached by a former police officer by the name of Pat Burns. Burns was looking to take an Olympiques team who had missed the playoffs back to the playoffs and possibly beyond the first round - a place that had never been since becoming "Les Olympiques" in 1976. In his efforts to do so, Burns finds himself a new superstar around whom he can build a team. Luc Robitaille, Joe Foglietta, and Sam Lang lead the team in scoring as the top-three scorers, and the new first line looks promising.

However, a massive bombshell rocked the Olympiques on November 30, 1984 when Le Journal de Montreal reported that there had been talks with a group involving Wayne Gretzky as they city of Hull looked to divest themselves of municipally-owned team. While it certainly didn't affect their play on the ice, fans in the Hull region took notice that The Great One could possibly own their team, bringing with him the eyes of the world as #99 began his foray into hockey ownership and management.

Despite the massive news story, the talks seemed to be very early in their progression in November, and the team still had a season to complete. Burns and his top line of Robitaille-Foglietta-and-Lang would lead the Olympiques to a 33-34-1 record that saw them qualify for the QMJHL playoffs, but they would fall in five games to the Verdun Junior Canadiens who boasted two key players in Claude Lemieux and Jimmy Carson.

Once the season ended, talks ramped up, and it was in the summer of 1985 when things were finalized. On Wednesday, August 7, 1985, Wayne Gretzky was officially named as the new owner of the Hull Olympiques, reportedly paying $175,000 for ownership of the QMJHL franchise. Almost immediately, Gretzky makes an impact on the Olympiques as he invited 16 year-old Cam Russell to play for the team. Russell, it should be noted, didn't play in the 1993 Stanley Cup Final, but did play in the 1992 Stanley Cup Final as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Luc Robitaille is a star once again this season, finishing with 191 points, but there are a number of players who provided excellent depth for the Olympiques this season as they improved greatly from the year before. Under Burns' guidance, the Olympiques finished with a record of 54-18-0 and won the QMJHL Championship with several key contributors outside of the Robitaille line. Among those players was Benoit Brunet, and Stephane Matteau was also a part of team as he played with the Blackhawks in the 1992 Stanley Cup Final before helping the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1994!

The Olympiques would advance to the 1985 Memorial Cup in Portland, Oregon where they would lose in the final to the Guelph Storm in a weird scheduling quirk that saw Hull finish their semi-final game at 11pm before playing the Memorial Cup Final at 11am the next morning. The 6-2 loss likely had more to do with fatigue than the way the Olympiques played, but no one ever said hockey was a fair game.

The 1986-87 saw the Olympiques take a step back as Luc Robitaille found himself on the Los Angeles Kings' roster. Benoit Brunet stepped up in a big way for Pat Burns in this campaign with 110 points to lead the team. The Olympiques would finish the season with a record of 26-39-5, but would lose in an opening round mini-tournament that saw them go 4-4 against the Laval Titan, the Longueuil Chevaliers, and the St. Jean Castors. Perhaps the biggest loss for the Olympiques was the announcement that Pat Burns had been hired by the AHL's Sherbrooke Canadiens. The coaching search would begin.

Under a new head coach by the name of Alain Vigneault - who coached the 2011 Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup Final - in 1987-88, Hull came out and lost six of their first ten games before regrouping and dominating the QMJHL for most of the season with players like Benoit Brunet, Martin Gelinas, Stephane Matteau, and Cam Russell all playing significant roles. A late-season trade with Granby saw the additions of Stephane Quintal and Andre Racicot. Of all of those players named, only Quintal failed to appear in a Stanley Cup Final, so this Olympiques team had a number of great players on the roster in going 43-23-4 and winning the QMJHL's President Cup!

The 1988 Memorial Cup would be played at the Centre Georges-Vézina in Chicoutimi, and things wouldn't go as well for Hull in this appearance as they dropped their first two games against Windsor and Medicine Hat before beating Drummondville, the QMJHL runner-up, again. That led to a semi-final appearance where Medicine Hat downed Hull once again, and the Olympiques would head home empty-handed once again.

Before we get too far down the road, it should be noted that the head coach for the Memorial Cup-winning Medicine Hat Tigers that season was none other than Barry Melrose. Yes, THAT Barry Melrose.

If you're looking for more Olympiques news, there won't be much after this moment, but there was a significant moment in the NHL that affected the Olympiques. On August 9, 1988, the Edmonton Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky, Mike Krushelnyski, and Marty McSorley to Los Angeles for Jimmy Carson (mentioned above!), Martin Gelinas (mentioned above!), a handful of picks, and cash in a deal that shook the NHL landscape. With Gretzky playing alongside his former junior star in Luc Robitaille, the Kings look like an entirely different team in the 1989 playoffs under Robbie Ftorek as they pulled off a dramatic seven-game victory over the Edmonton Oilers before falling to the eventual Stanley Cup champions in the Calgary Flames in Round Two.

After running training camp in Hull to delight of many people in the area to start the 1989-90 season, Gretzky and the Kings under the coaching of Tom Webster upset the Calgary Flames in the opening round of the playoffs, but are swept by the Oilers in the second round as the Oilers would claim the Stanley Cup. Needless to say, there was still work to be done in the City of Angels.

The 1990-91 Los Angeles Kings finished atop the Smythe Division standings once more as they looked ready for a deep playoff run, but they would run into the Edmonton Oilers who once again thwarted their efforts in a 4-2 series win in Round Two. Four of the games in that series would go to overtime, and the Kings would finish 1-3 in those games as the free hockey didn't benefit them.

The 1991-92 season saw the Kings finish second in the Smythe Division only to face the Edmonton Oilers once more in the opening round of the playoffs. And just as the Oilers had done in the previous two seasons, the Kings' season ended at the hands of the Oilers. The Oilers would move on after dispatching the Kings in a 4-2 opening-round series win, and the culmination of those losses would cost Tom Webster his job as head coach. The Kings would hire Barry Melrose in his place as they prepared for the 1992-93 season.

The start of the 1992-93 season would also see the Hull Olympiques sold by Gretzky to a group of local businessmen as Gretzky moved on from the ownership idea. With him no longer having to oversee the business of the Olympiques, it seems a refocused Gretzky was ready to dominate once again.

One of the players that was traded to acquire Gretzky was reacquired by the Kings that season. Jimmy Carson rejoined the Kings on January 29, 1993 after being packaged with players from Detroit for Paul Coffey and a few players as the Kings looked to add more firepower for the playoffs. As stated above, Carson played for Verdun who eliminated the Olympiques in the 1984 QMJHL Playoffs.

If you put all of those names together, the 1993 Stanley Cup Final saw Luc Robitaille, Benoit Brunet, and Andre Racicot all come from the Hull Olympiques program while owner Wayne Gretzky skated for the Kings in the Final. Indirectly, Jimmy Carson of Verdun and Martin Gelinas of Hull were part of how Gretzky got to the Kings, Barry Melrose coached the Kings after helping Medicine Hat defeat Hull in the 1988 Memorial Cup, and Jimmy Carson returned to the Kings to play in the Final. Pat Burns, it should be noted, was coaching the Maple Leafs who Gretzky and the Kings defeated to advance to the Stanley Cup Final against Montreal!

Can any one major junior team claim three former players and a former owner in one Stanley Cup Final while having one of its former players traded for that former owner? I'm going to say "no". As in there's zero chance that it ever happened.

Not including all the players in the 1992 Stanley Cup Final and the two players in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final that either played for or played with Wayne Gretzky on the 1993 Los Angeles Kings, it seemed that whatever was in the water in Hull during Gretzky's ownership days was a little magical when one considers how Hull, Quebec connected seven people directly in that Stanley Cup Final. I don't know if this year's final has those same confluences among teammates and opponents and coaches and owners, but it's pretty amazing how the hockey world is connected.

And just like in 1993, GO HABS GO!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!