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Some historic Stanley Cup oddities ... |
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With the two month Stanley Cup playoff marathon starting tonight, here is a look back at five groups of people who each have some unusual common connection among themselves in the history of the quest for hockey's "Holy Grail." ...
"A record shutout..."
After losing, 3-1, to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Forum in the first game of their 1944 Stanley Cup semi-final series, the Montreal Canadiens took the next three contests by 5-1, 2-1, and 4-1 scores to set up a potential series clinching game back in Montreal on March 30. Habs' goalie Bill Durnan was perfect through the first two periods while Leafs' netminder Paul Bibeault -- who had played the previous two seasons with the Canadiens -- had already been solved four times so it looked pretty bleak for the Leafs when the puck was dropped for the final frame, but they could not have possibly imagined how bad things would get as the Habs would use those final twenty minutes to set a bevy of scoring records which are still standing today after two thirds of a century!
While Durnan watched comfortably from the Habs' crease which the Leafs were still unable to dent, his teammates scored a playoff record seven more times in the final frame which also set the post season mark for largest shut-out win at 11-0, largest margin of victory at eleven goals as well, and between 7:58 and 10:33 of the period, the fastest four goals by one team as Toe Blake scored twice (at 7:58 and 8:37) followed by Maurice Richard at 9:17 and Ray Getliffe at 10:33 to give them the quartette of markers in just 2:35. And as if this were not enough, Buddy O'Connor solved Bibeault for a fifth Montreal goal 1:01 later at 11:34 for a record five goals in 3:36 as well!! The Canadiens would then go on to sweep the Chicago Black Hawks in the finals giving the Habs their first Stanley Cup title since 1931.
"... A trio of scoring leaders -- with 3 points! ..."
Three players tied for leading scorer in the 1929 Stanley Cup playoffs -- Butch Keeling of the New York Rangers, and Andy Blair and Ace Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs. All three of these marksmen did so with just three points each with Keeling and Blair both notching three goals and Bailey with a goal and two assists. Three points is the fewest to qualify for a leading scorer by an NHL player in the post season -- and Bailey's one goal also makes him the "lowest" scorer to accomplish the same feat. (Two other NHL'ers would later tie for leading scorer in the play-offs with just one goal but also had more points as Boston's Cooney Weiland (1-5) tied teammate Marty Barry (3-3) with six points overall in 1930, and Toronto's Charlie Conacher (1-4) tied fellow Leaf Busher Jackson (3-2) and the Montreal Maroons' Cy Wentworth (3-2) and Baldy Northcott (4-1) with five in 1935.
Reggie "The Rifle" Leach of the Philadelphia Flyers captured both the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP in the 1976 Stanley Cup playoffs (even though the Flyers lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the finals), and was also the post season's leading scorer with 24 points in 19 goals and 5 assists in 16 games. Leach's 19 goals that year still stands as the most collected by a leading scorer in the play-offs. (Edmonton's Jari Kurri also scored 19 goals in a playoff year when he notched 31 points (19-12) in 1985 but teammate Wayne Gretzky finished with a record 47 overall post season points on 17 goals and 30 assists for the Oilers.)
"... An overtime marathon ..."
In the spring of 1936, right wing Modere "Mud" Bruneteau was an all but annonymous 21- year old rookie on the Detroit Red Wings who had only played in half of that club's regular season games (24 of 48) in 1935-36 and collected just two career points (both goals) as an NHL'er. On March 24, 1936, he took to the ice in Montreal for his first ever Stanley Cup game facing the Montreal Maroons, but the time he took off his uniform off many, many hours later his name would be engraved in the hearts and minds of hockey fans forever. Normie Smith was in goal for the Wings while 1935 Vezina Trophy winner Lorne Chabot minding the twine for the Maroons, and both were perfect through sixty minutes of regulation thus sending the contest into overtime at 0-0 -- and that's the way it would remain for almost six full overtime periods! It finally ended when Bruneteau beat Chabot at 16:30 of that sixth overtime with just the third goal (and also third overall NHL point) of his career (as well as his first ever in the playoffs) to give the Wings a 1-0 victory in the longest game in NHL history at 176:30. That record still stands today seventy-four years later. The Red Wings would go on to sweep the best-of-three series from the Maroons and then defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs in the finals, three-games-to-one, to capture their first ever Stanley Cup championship. Ironically the Leafs only win in the finals came in game three which they won, 4-3, in the fourth overtime period!
The current record for the fastest playoff overtime goal came half a century after Bruneteau's marathon winner. After losing the first game of the 1986 Stanley Cup finals, 5-2, to the Calgary Flames on May 16th, the visiting Montreal Canadiens were in danger of going down on May 18th by two games when game two was knotted at 2-2 at the end of sixty minutes. Surprisingly rookie Habs' coach Jean Perron sent out his checking line of Brian Skrudland, Mike McPhee and Claude Lemieux to begin overtime which, in hindsight, proved to be a "genius" move. After winning the opening face-off, Skrudland and McPhee unexpectedly found themselves on a 2-on-1 break which, after faking a shot, McPhee used to slip the puck to Skrudland who cut to the net and calmly redirected it past a surpised Mike Vernon just nine seconds into overtime. The Canadiens would go on to sweep the next three games to capture their 23rd Stanely Cup title.
"... The long and the short of it ..."
In the 1930 Stanley Cup playoffs Montreal Canadiens' Hall of Fame goaltender George Hainsworth set the now still standing 81-year old record for the longest shut-out streak in post season play at 270:08. It began on March 28th after he gave up a goal to Murray Murdoch of the New York Rangers at 15:34 of the first period of game one of a best-of-three semi final series, the only goal he allowed in the tilt which was won by the Habs, 2-1, at 8:52 of the fourth overtime. Hainsworth entered the second game of the set with a 113:18 shutout streak which he extended to 173:18 on March 30 in a 2-0 shut-out which sent the Habs on to a best-of-three final series with the defending Champion Boston Bruins. Hainsworth pitched another shut-out in the first game of that series which Montreal won, 3-0, and held Boston off the board in game two until the Bruins' Eddie Shore finally ended it at 16:50 of the second period to give Hainsworth a remarkable four-and-a-half hours of playing time without allowing a goal. The Canadiens eventually won the game, 4-3, to capture the Cup.
Glenn Hall, who is also a Hall of Famer, has the "distinction" of having the shortest "shut-out streak" in play-off history at just five seconds. On April 11, 1965, Hall was beaten twice by Detroit's Norm Ullman at 17:35 and 17:40 of the second period of game five of their semi final series with Hall's Chicago Blackhawks on their way to a 4-2 win and three-games-to-two lead in the best of seven series. Hall shut Detroit out, 4-0, in game six, however, and then eliminated the Red Wings in game seven with a 4-2 victory at the Olympia. Hall and the Blackhawks then took the Montreal Canadiens to a seventh game in the finals but lost to the Habs, 4-0, in the title game.
"... and One futile figure, or three."
Although he never played a game in the NHL, hardnosed defenseman Patrick J. "Pat" Kelly has been a fixture in the minor leagues for more than half a century as a player, coach, manager, and league executive. Kelly spent the majority of his playing career (1956-72) in the EHL with the Greensboro Generals, Jersey Devils, and Clinton Comets while also serving as player/coach with Jersey and Clinton. Kelly later coached the SHL Charlotte Checkers and spent one season behind the bench of the WHA Birmingham Bulls in 1976-77 before finally getting a call to the NHL as head coach of the lowly Colorado Rockies in 1977. Although that club finished with a record of 19-40-21, amazingly it qualified for the 1978 Stanley Cup playoffs facing off against the powerhouse Philadelphia Flyers in a best-of-three preliminary round. Incredibly game one in Philadelphia was tied at 2-2 after sixty minutes thanks to the fine work former Flyer goalie Doug Favell who stopped 41 of 43 Flyer shots while the Rockies only magaged 16 on Bernie Parent. The prospect of going to Colorado for a do-or-die game did not sit well with the Flyers, however, and so they made quick work of the overtime with Mel Bridgman ending it in just 23-seconds. The Flyers again outshot the Rockies by a wide margin in game two (45-17), and again Favell was brilliant, but the Flyers prevailed, 3-1, thus ending Pat Kelly's first -- and what would prove to be his only -- Stanley Cup experience at two games coached, no wins. No coach to have stood behind an NHL bench had less success. After a 3-14-4 start in 1978-79 Kelly was replaced behind the Rockies' bench by Aldo Guidolin but almost immediately took over the AHL Rochester Americans. He continued coaching in the minor pros until 1989 when he became the first Commissioner of the ECHL. When he retired from that post in 1996 the ECHL playoff championship trophy, the Kelly Cup, was named in his honor.
Former Calgary Flames' GM and coach Darryl Sutter also has a record of futility. In fourteen years of coaching in the NHL he stood behind the bench for 101 games of Stanley Cup action of which 26 were with the Chicago Blackhawks (11-15) in three playoff years, 42 with the San José Sharks (18-24) in 5 post seasons, and 33 with the Calgary Flames (18-15) in 2 play-offs for a total of 47 wins and 54 losses in 10 trips to the play-offs as a coach. In all those post seasons, however, his clubs only made it past the second round twice -- in 1995 with Chicago (losing to Detroit in the semi finals five games) and with Calgary in 2004 losing to Tampa Bay in the finals in seven games. Although he came within a hair's breadth of winning the Cup in 2004, Darryl Sutter's 101 games behind the bench in the Stanley Cup playoffs is the most by any coach without ever winning a Cup title.
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