The Music Is Turned Up High : Stanley Cup: Neither the North Stars nor the Penguins expected to be making any noise in the NHL finals.

There were many predicted matchups for the 1991 Stanley Cup finals. But this wasn’t one of them.

Minnesota and Pittsburgh?

A year ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t know if their superstar, Mario Lemieux, would ever make it back to the ice. The Minnesota North Stars didn’t know if they would ever make it back to Met Center.

But here they are, alive and well and ready to battle for the Stanley Cup in the best-of-seven finals beginning tonight (4:30 PDT) at Civic Arena, where Game 2 will be played Friday night.

At the end of last season, the North Stars were looking west, contemplating a switch to the Bay Area, where new fans and a new arena beckoned. Instead, there was a change in ownership and, suddenly, the North Stars weren’t going anywhere.

Either geographically or, apparently, artistically.

Under new owner Norm Green, new General Manager Bob Clarke and new Coach Bob Gainey, Minnesota stumbled out of the gate, winning five of its first 25 while drawing only 5,000 to 7,000 fans to Met Center.

The North Stars finished the regular season 27-39-14, the fewest victories among the 16 playoff teams.

Ahead lay the Chicago Blackhawks, holders of the best record in hockey. Then, the St. Louis Blues, holders of the second-best record. And beyond them, the Edmonton Oilers, defending Stanley Cup champions.

Chicago fell in six. St. Louis did the same. Edmonton went in five.

What happened?

“There wasn’t one point where the lights went on and the music started,” Gainey said.

Said Clarke: “During training camp, we knew we had good players, but they weren’t playing well. After the All-Star break, we started to win the 3-2 and 4-3 games. Those were the games we had been losing. We started to come together.”

Still, even Clarke acknowledges that it wasn’t until after the Chicago series that his club realized what it had.

“We told ourselves, ‘Golly, maybe we’re better than even we think.’ ” he said.

What Minnesota has demonstrated is amazing versatility.

Against the physical Blackhawks, the North Stars turned the other cheek and won with the power play. Against the higher-scoring Blues, the North Stars played tight defense and held Brett Hull to three goals in six games. Against the speed-skating Oilers, the North Stars showed some speed of their own.

Pittsburgh, a team that had never won a division title, began its 24th season looking as if this wasn’t going to be the year, either.

Lemieux, long considered Wayne Gretzky’s successor as the dominant player in hockey, had appeared in only one game since February of 1990 because of a disk problem in his back.

Off-season surgery solved that, but an infection developed that threatened Lemieux’s future as a player.

“I had my doubts about ever skating again,” he said.

Lemieux sat out the first 50 games of this season, then came back slowly but steadily.

He conceded that he wasn’t pain free in a single regular-season game, but said he is back to “98 to 99%” of what he was.

Which is about 25% better than most players ever get to be.

So the Penguins’ offensive star was back, but he alone had never been enough to make them Stanley Cup contenders. The joke around Pittsburgh was that Lemieux had hurt his back carrying the Penguins for all of those years.

Then, early in March, Pittsburgh became a complete team by trading high-scoring center John Cullen, defenseman Zarley Zalapski and forward Jeff Parker to the Hartford Whalers for center Ron Francis and defensemen Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings.

The change was instantaneous.

The Penguins went 9-3-2 the rest of the season and moved past the New York Rangers, winning the division title with a 41-33-6 record.

But it was hardly smooth sailing to the finals. Whereas the North Stars have won the first game of every series, the Penguins have done the opposite.

They lost the opener to the New Jersey Devils in the first round, won the second game in overtime and hung on through seven games.

Similar script in the division finals. The Penguins lost the opener to the Washington Capitals, went into overtime to win Game 2 and wound up taking four in a row to wrap up the series in five.

In the conference finals, the Boston Bruins won the first two, but Pittsburgh came back to win four in a row. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Lemieux said of reaching the finals in his seventh NHL season. “I’ve been thinking about it since I was a young kid. A lot of good players don’t have the chance. We have to make the most of it.”

Asked if he needs a Stanley Cup to be truly accepted as one of the game’s great players, Lemieux replied, “If not, there’ll certainly be an empty spot there.”

NHL Notes

Pittsburgh defenseman Paul Coffey is expected to return tonight. After coming back from a scratched cornea, Coffey suffered a broken jaw and missed the conference finals. He has skated in practice the last two days wearing a full facemask to protect the jaw, which has not completely healed. . . . The finals will continue with Games 3 and 4 Sunday and Tuesday in Minnesota. If necessary, Game 5 will be played in Pittsburgh May 23, Game 6 in Minnesota May 25 and Game 7 in Pittsburgh May 28.