By PAT REICHART
Every Friday in NYP TV Sports, our sports television pullout that appears in the middle of the print edition and online, we present “Five Questions for ⦔
This is the 6th Question, where we post more of my interview.
This week I spoke with Ray Ferraro.
Q: You’re a player that’s been on both sides of the Islanders/Rangers rivalry. How would you compare the two sides?
A: When I was with the Islanders, the game with the Rangers was always the biggest game on our schedule, and I think our record reflected that – in the way that we played the Rangers and the way that we played the game after, which I don’t think was very good. When I went to the Rangers, I learned that it meant a heck of a lot more to us on Long Island than it did to the Rangers. The Rangers veiwed it as just another game.
Q: From Cam Janssen to Chris Simon, it seems like cheapshots are starting to creep back into the NHL. In the 1993 playoffs, you were witness to one of the diritest hits I’ve ever seen – Dale Hunter’s post-goal bodycheck on Isles’ star Pierre Turgeon. What was that like?
A: I was sitting on the bench, and my initial reaction was, “What the heck just happened there? Why would Hunter hit Turgeon thirty feet from the net?” And then all heck broke loose. After the game, we were obviously happy that we had put Washington away, yet we were pretty concerned and upset about the fact that we lost our best player on a dirty, late, cheap hit. That was really our reaction.
Q: Following the hit, the Islanders went on to upset the two-time defending champion Penguins before being eliminated in the conference finals. If Turgeon had been fully healthy, how far do you think that team could have gone?
A: The last four teams in the playoffs that year – Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, and the Islanders – I don’t know that there was a big difference between any of those teams, except that Montreal won ten overtime games in those playoffs. They beat us twice in overtime – in Game Two in Montreal, when Benoit Hogue could have won it for us, but shot it over the net on a breakaway, and in Game Three, when Turgeon had a breakaway and also shot it over the net. I guess every team that loses says this, but a break here or a break there and it could have been us.