The origin story of Darren McCarty's dazzling, improbable 1997 Stanley Cup-winning goal

To clinch the 1997 Stanley Cup Final, Darren McCarty scored one of the most iconic, dazzling goals in the illustrious history of the Detroit Red Wings: a glorious toe drag to beat a defender, before a tidy backhand-forehand around the goaltender.  That McCarty was far better known for his fists than his hands further cements the goal's legendary status within Red Wing lore.

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In this entry from the THN Archive, Steve Dryden provides the origin story of McCarty's unlikely and mesmerizing goal, tracing its roots back to legendary Detroit scout Hakan Andersson and Sweden.

From the THN Archive: "McSwede Delivers Big-Time" by Steve Dryden, Jun. 27, 1997 / Vol. 50, Issue 38

DETROIT-The secret behind the Stanley Cup-winning goal was shared behind the Detroit Red Wings’ bench and in the stands of Joe Louis Arena.

Moments after Darren McCarty sealed the Philadelphia Flyers’ 1997 fate with a spectacular goal, he turned to Red Wings’ assistant coach Barry Smith and laughed, “It pays to send me to Sweden.”

Meanwhile, Red Wings’ European scout Hakan Andersson and Swedish hockey consultant Tomas Storm, separated by nine rows of seats, searched for one another among a sea of faces in the stands. “We looked at each other and laughed,” Andersson said. Then Storm made a stick handling gesture with his hands.

The two exchanges neatly capture the real story behind McCarty’s brilliant inside-out deception of Flyers’ defenseman Janne Niinimaa and nifty maneuvering past goalie Ron Hex-tall to give Detroit a 2-0 lead in Game 4. Eric Lindros’ goal with 1 f seconds left elevated McCarty’s insurance goal to winner status in the June 7 game.

For those who don’t know the geographical lengths McCarty has gone to transform his feared fists into half-decent hands, the goal may have seemed stamped: Made in Canada. But McCarty’s quintessentially North American roots-he is a graduate of the Ontario League-have branched into Sweden twice and the result is a hockey hybrid who scored a career-high 19 goals during the 1996-97 regular season and added three more-two of them winners-during the playoffs.

McCarty, 25, went to Sweden each of the past two summers to improve his puckhandling skills. It 1995, he worked under Storm, who is considered an expert on stick handling. Storm put McCarty through the paces. “When we started,” Storm said with a smile, “he missed the puck a lot and the cones moved a little bit.” Storm likes his players to use the full expanse of their reach (think Peter Forsberg), achieve an almost musical rhythm in movement (think ABBA) and to explode from one point to the next in a series of moves (think Guy Lafleur).

The Stanley Cup-winning goal was no fluke or once-in-a-lifetime inspiration for McCarty. It was the product of hours of hard work, including many at The Factory, a dingy Stockholm ice surface so-named because it produces great hockey players. McCarty executed what Storm calls alternately the move or, in Swedish, hamalen, which translates to a woman’s hair needle. The right-shooting McCarty showed forehand to Niinimaa, paused, brought the puck back between the defenseman’s stick and left skate, rocketed past him to the left, held the puck on his backhand, using it as bait against Hextall and enticing the goalie to make the first move…and then McCarty made his-pulling the puck to the forehand and depositing it into the empty net

Andersson was anxious to see if something special was about to happen or if McCarty was just going to shoot as he approached the Flyers’ defenseman. “Okay,” Andersson thought to himself, “let’s see what he can do.” The most unlikely Swede this side of Ulf Samuelsson made it two for two for Tre Kronor. Niklas Lidström, an awesome defensive force throughout the playoffs and legitimate Conn Smythe candidate, had staked the Red Wings to a 1-0 lead late in the first period.

Lest we forget, McCarty’s goal reflected more than hands across the water; it also reflected Detroit’s embrace of team toughness. The Red Wings were wiped out by the New Jersey Devils two years ago because they weren’t big or tough enough. This time they demolished the Flyers because they were big and tough and talented.

A bruiser or combination cruise missile/stealth bomber scored at least once in each game of the final: Joe Kocur contributed a dazzling backhander in Game 1; Brendan Shanahan scored twice in Game 2; Martin Lapointe had a pair in Game 3; and McCarty _ finished it all with a flourish in Game 4.

“I consider myself a poor man’s power forward,” McCarty said. It’s debatable that anyone in the NHL can be considered a poor man by any standard. But the sentiment has some merit. McCarty idolizes Rick Tocchet-the Red Wing has 12 Tocchet trading cards in his dressing room stall-and while he may never equal the tough and talented Washington Capitals’ free agent in goal-scoring ability, McCarty is following a similar career development path.

Both made it to the NHL on fractiousness and learned about finesse once there. McCarty has beaten Tocchet to the punch in one notable regard. Tocchet won his first (and only) Stanley Cup in his eighth season. McCarty has won his first in only his fourth. Whether it’s fourth and long-it was 42 years between the Red Wings’ last two Cups-remains to be seen.

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