Common Denominator: May 10th, 1970 and 1979.

They are the two most famous goals scored in the 1970s. Bobby Orr's in 1970 and Guy Lafleur's in 1979. While Orr's was an OT-Stanley Cup-winning-goal, Lafleur's was merely the tying goal a round earlier. But it was game seven, and his team eventually won.

The Boston Bruins were the team in common, as well.

So Boston had finished out of the playoffs from 1959/60 to 1966/67. The addition of Bobby Orr in 1966 didn't mean they made the playoffs. The trade for Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield put the Bruins over the hump. They made the playoffs in 1967/68, getting swept by the Montreal Canadians. The Habs beat the Bruins again the next season, but this time it was the a round later. Boston was getting there.



In 1969/70, the very next season, the Boston Bruins went all the way.

Montreal was nowhere to be found, missing the playoffs despite 92 points. Boston (And Chicago) finished tied for first atop the NHL with 99 points. The Bruins got 120 points from Orr and another 99 from Esposito.

One of the goalies who felt the wrath of Phil and company in the 1970 playoffs was his very brother Tony. Chicago had wiped out Detroit in the first round in just four games. But Boston swept them in the semifinals. And this was no poor Blackhawks' team. The New York Rangers had won two games against Boston in the first round. That would prove to be the Bruins only two playoff losses.

In the Stanley Cup Finals, it took Boston just four games to rout the St. Louis Bruins. Game four went into OT, where #4 ended it forty seconds in!



Boston came right back the next season, 1970/71, and seemed poised for a repeat. Not only did they win 57 games (Out of 78) in the regular season, they scored a then-record 399 goals! They also had made some good draft picks, taking Reggie Leach, Rick MacLeish and goalie Daniel Bouchard. But none of those picks ever played for the Bruins. And guess what? An old pick of theirs in the 1964 draft helped usher them out of the postseason that year.

Yes, Ken Dryden did amazing in the playoffs for Montreal. In seven games against Boston, he went 4-3 and posted a 3.59 GAA and a fine S% of  .912. Kenny had quite a workload that year in the postseason. He needed to be at his very best, as Montreal needed six games to ouster a surprisingly strong Minnesota North Stars (In just their fourth season of existence) and then another full seven to beat Chicago in the Stanley Cup Finals.

The New York Rangers made sure there wasn't another Montreal / Chicago matchup in the playoffs (Too bad, as goalies Dryden and Tony Esposito were awesome that year). New York needed six games to beat Montreal, but only four to take out Chicago. Guess who was waiting in the finals? Boston! They had matched through Toronto in five and St. Louis again in just four. And the Bruins weren't about to lose the Stanley Cup this time. Six tough games later, Boston was on top of the world again.

Montreal managed to win in 1972/73, as Boston lost Gerry Cheevers, John McKenzie and Derek Sanderson to the WHA. Ed Westfall was selected by the New York Islanders in the expansion draft. A promising player was traded in Ivan Boldirev to California. Sanderson got his release and came back to Boston in February of 1973, but the team was nevertheless not as good. The Rangers took their revenge in the first round. The Bruins then went all the way to the finals the next season, only to fall to the Philadelphia Flyers in six games (Bernie Parent, the Flyers' goalie, was stellar in the finals). A new coach named Don Cherry was then hired.

The Bruins lost to the Blackhawks in the first round in 1975. Although Orr played just ten games and Phil Esposito was traded in 1975/76, Boston went 48-15-17 in the regular season. There were no upsets in the playoffs from here on in until 1980/81. In face, Boston marched through Los Angeles in a tough, seven-game affair in the quarterfinals before losing to Philadelphia in five games in the semifinals. Boston, however, soon found Montreal rather than Philadelphia the problem.

In fact, the Bruins swept the Flyers in 1977 and needed just five games to beat them in 1978. But Ken Dryden was at his absolute peak in those years. He was a big reason why the Habs won it all from 1975/76 to 1978/79. Even the great Bruins teams were just pushed aside.

Ken turned aside 87 of 93 shots directed his way in the '77 Stanley Cup Finals. The first two games were one-sided, the next two were close. Montreal won them all. The team was so good they could both blow you out or win the close ones. Beat you 5-3 or 1-0. It didn't matter. They found a way.

Boston found a way to make it much closer the next year. This time, the series went six. Were the Bruins improving? Or was that just a lucky break. The return of Gerry Cheevers two seasons earlier had started Boston back on the right path. Don Cherry used both him and Gilles Gilbert from 1975/76 until 1979/80 (Ron Grahame also got into 40 games in the nets for Boston in 1977/78), but Cheevers was The Man in the playoffs.

In 1979, the Bruins and Habs met again. This time, it was Gilbert in net as Boston stormed back from 0-2 and 2-3 in that series.



They kept coming back. Cheevers was not in net for game seven as Gilbert was that good.

Boston lost a heart-breaker. 5-4, in overtime, no less! The Bruins had led 4-3 with just about 90 seconds to go when Guy Lafleur tied it with a clutch goal!



So who were the holdovers of these two classic overtime games from the 1970s?

Cheevers was still there, as mentioned, but not in net. Wayne Cashman was there for both. Don Marcotte, and Rick Smith (Who wore #10 in 1970 and #23 in 1979). Boston was a vastly different team from nine years ago. The 1970s had only three different teams winning the Stanley Cup: Boston, Philadelphia and Montreal!

As for the Bruins, their 1970 Cup ended a 29-year drought. Then they went 39 years from 1972 to 2011 without winning it all again. As you can see, it took some pretty good teams with some hot goaltending to stop them. Yet when I think of the 1970s Boston Bruins, I think of two, never-to-be forgotten game seven's that have the opposite effect on their fans. The Bobby Orr one? A smile. The Guy Lafleur one? Oh...Don't bring it up!


“The information used herein was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by The Hockey Summary Project. For more information about the Hockey Summary Project please visit:
http://hsp.flyershistory.com
or
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/hockey_summary_project/”

References


Anson, Peter. Hockey Summary Project. Hockey Summary Project. Web. 05 Aug. 2018, <hsp.flyershistory.com/>.

Cole, Stephen. Slapshots: The Best And Worst Of 100 Years Of Hockey. Penguin, 1993. Print.

Diamond, Dan. Total NHL. Toronto: Dan Diamond And Associates, 2003. Print.

Diamond, Dan. Total Stanley Cup: An Official Publication Of The National Hockey League. Toronto: Published in Canada by Total Sports Canada, 2000. Print.

Fischler, Stan. The All-New Hockey's 100. Scarborough: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. 1988. Print.

Fischler, Stan, and Jeff Resnick. Golden Ice: The Greatest Teams In Hockey History. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1990. Print.

Hughes, Morgan, Fischler Stan, Fischler Shirley, Joseph Romain, and James Duplacey. Hockey Chronicle: Year-By-Year History Of The National Hockey League. Lincolnwood: Publications International, 2007. Print.

Irvin, Dick. The Habs: An Oral History Of The Montreal Canadiens, 1940-1980. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991. Print.

Irvin, Dick. My 26 Stanley Cups: Memories of a Hockey Life. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001. Print.

“Official Site of the National Hockey League” NHL.com. National Hockey League. Web. 05 Aug. 2018. <https://www.nhl.com>.

Sports Reference LLC. Hockey-Reference.com - Hockey Statistics and History. http://www.hockey-reference.com/. Web. 05 Aug. 2018.

Strachan, Al. Go To The Net: Eight Goals That Changed The Game. Triumph Books, 2006. Print.

Weekes, Don, and Kerry Banks. Hockey's Top 100: The Game's Greatest Goals. Vancouver: Greystone, 2010. Print.

The Best Assists You Will Ever See

Goals are great to see in hockey, but sometimes the play that preceeds it trumps anything (even a great goal) that happens after it. I've seen my share. Here's my little Top 5.

(Disclaimer: There are more, perhaps many more brilliant assists that you have seen that I haven't. This is really just a personal list. And it's limited to NHL games. Got another assist that I should know about? Feel free to write to me and maybe I'll include them in a future post!)

5) Guy Lafleur, May 10th, 1979

Okay, this is the famous game where Lafleur scores the tying goal against the Bruins and goalie Gilles Gilbert. But lost in that famous game is how Lafleur helped the Habs come back from an 3-1 deficit to start the third. He actually made 2 nice assists in that period to tie the game at 3. But one of them in engraved in my mind forever.

Lafleur circled the net, controlling the puck for a while with just one hand on the stick. Then he and passed it back to Napier who buried it! It was just done so fluidly, it seemed almost unfair that it was a play that only Guy could make. And later in the period, with time winding down, The Flower tied the game with his dramatic never-to-be-forgotten goal. Simply put, when guys like Lafleur were "on", there was no stopping them.



4) Guy Lafleur, April 11th, 1982

Guy may have been a little older at this point. And his Habs were simply not the team they had been three seasons earlier. But these all-time greats can still put on a show. It was the first ever Battle Of Quebec, and this is one play that I will never forget.

The Canadians trailed 2-1 in this best-of-5 opening round matchup. But this series had the feeling of a Stanley Cup finals, believe me. Game 4 featured umpteen melees that saw a parade to the penalty box by both teams. Yet, when the dust had settled down, Lafleur put on another show.

With the score 4-1 in favour of visiting Montreal (who need a win here to extend this best of five), Lafleur broke down the right side at the old Coliseum. He passed the blueline. He faked a slapshot that, honestly, seemed to fool Quebec's goalie Pierre Bouchard and everyone else on the ice. Lafleur then did an imitation of Magic Johnson, the great basketball player. The Flower then passed the puck in between his skates. Mark Napier scored, and Quebec was done for the night.

Alas, Quebec took the deciding game 5. Kinda sad watching this. There is no more Battle Of Quebec's, and Danny Gallivan, who called this goal, is also no longer around. Chalk those two facts up as a reason that hockey lacks the excitement it once had!




3) Bobby Orr, March 22nd, 1973

He changed the game forever. He scored The Goal in the 1970s Stanley Cup finals. He's the only defencemen ever to lead the league in scoring, and he did it twice. Injuries brought this all to an end far too soon. We'll never know what more Orr could have done had he not had all those injuries.

But I choose to remember something else he did that will not be forgotten. In a game against the Minnesota North Stars (who, like Quebec, are no longer where they used to be) and with Boston up 2-1 in the second period (Bobby having scored Boston's second goal), Orr carried the puck to left of Gilles Gilbert (Am I picking on him, here?), only to get some lumber across his back by Fred Barnett. Orr went down.

But was not out.

Orr, who shot left-handed, dished the puck behind his net to Johnny Bucyk, who tucked it in behind Gilbert. Amazing, isn't it? These guys are so good, that even on their behind, they are so dangerous. But then again, there has never been anyone like Orr, right?




2) Wayne Gretzky, May 30th, 1985

The Edmonton Oilers were looking for a second straight Stanley Cup, and took a three games to one lead over the Philadelphia Flyers. Up 2-1 in game five in the first, Gretzky just made it happen as always.

Grant Fuhr, the Oilers goalie, had played the puck up the ice, and eventually it came to Gretzky. Wayne skated to the right side of center and then darted to the left. Paul Coffey was trailing. After crossing the blue line, Gretzky passed the disc behind his back, but it actually ended up being a forward pass to the streaking defencemen. Coffey beat the bewildered Flyer goalie Bob Frosse, and then exclaimed, "What a pass!"

It's plays like these that will ensure that The Great One will never be forgotten.




1) Wayne Gretzky, April 24, 1983.

The Oilers had a nice comfortable lead of 6-1 over the Hawks early in the third period of game 1 of the 1983Campbell Conference Finals (as it was called in the day). But the Chicago Blackhawks scored a goal. When Dave Semenko of the Oilers got a 5 minute major for a spear, the Hawks pressed again, then scored to make it 6-3. There was still plenty of time on the powerplay. Edmonton had blown a 5-goal lead in game three of the first round series vs. Los Angeles in 1982. Would history repeat itself?

Gretzky was suddenly on the ice, and a fine feed to Kurri made it 7-3. However, the Oilers were still shorthanded. But Gretzky never stopped thinking offence, even in these situations. Skating to the Oilers' bench and flanked by three Chicago defenders, Gretzky whirled around and fed Kurri a breakaway backhand pass. Jari broke in on Tony Esposito and beat him with a shot. Gretzky had turned a short-handed situation to his own unfair advantage!


The information used herein was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by The Hockey Summary Project. For more information about the Hockey Summary Project please visit:

http://hsp.flyershistory.com

or

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/hockey_summary_project/


References

Hockey Summary Project (Hockey Summary Project) http://hsp.flyershistory.com/

Hockey-Reference.com (Hockey-Reference.com) http://www.hockey-reference.com/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/

Gilles Gilbert: Overlooked And Forgotten By Too Many

You have all seen the clip of Lafleur getting that goal against the Bruins.

You have all seen Orr getting hauled down and getting the pass off behind his back for a goal (Johnny Bucyk actually scored the goal, by the way) against Minnesota.

You have all seen the clip of Beliveau's 500th goal against Minny.

You have all seen Rick McLeish get that goal that he tipped in against the Bruins.

Who was the goalie on all those? Why Gilles Gilbert, of course. Yes, that Lafleur goal was not against Cheevers.

Add to that Rick Vaive's 50th in 1983, and Gilly seems to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when it comes to hockey history. But the irony is, he usually played about as good as the masked man standing 200 feet away from him. Think Bernie Parent of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1974 Stanley Cup finals vs. Gilbert and the Bruins. Cheevers was off in the WHA, so Boston was left with Gilles Gilbert. Did Gilly play that badly?

In game 1, Gilbert played quite well, but Boston almost let the underdog Flyers win the game. Behind 2-0, Philadelphia came back to tie it. Then they nearly won it when they hit the crossbar behind Gilbert. Bobby Orr scored the game winner with less than a minute to go. Nobody remembers Gilly's fine game.

Gilly was also fine in game 2, and again the Bruins took a 2-0 lead. Gilbert allowed an early goal in the second period by Bobby Clarke. But the goal itself was a tip-in of a high shot. Gilbert did not have a chance.

And after that, Gilbert matched Parent save for save. The Flyers tied it on a goal by Moose Dupont with less than a minute left after pulling Parent. Gilles Gilbert was screened on that. What can you do?

In overtime, Gilbert made the save of the game when he stopped Terry Crisp (not quite the coach, yet) when Terry was on the doorstep. Parent also made a fine save on a breakaway. Bobby Clarke would win the game a little past the 12th minute of OT.

Gilbert did have a bit of an off-game in game 3. But he was not alone as the Bruins just didn't seem to have it. Boston scored just 1 goal to the Flyers' 4.

In game 4, Philadelphia took an early 2-0 lead. But 2-0 leads never seemed to mean much in this series, and the Boston Bruins proved that again. They quickly erased it, tying the game before the first period was half over. Parent and Gilbert than raged a ferocious duel, as both goaltenders knew the next goal would be huge in this series. The second period proved that as Gilly stopped all nine shots his away and Parent eight himself.

The Flyers broke through with 2 goals in the third to wrap it up and put the Bruins behind 3-1 in the series. What could Boston do to come back and win this series? Gilbert would have to play well.

He sure did in game 5. So, too, did Bobby Orr. Parent? Not quite. Boston rammed 5 goals behind him and Philadelphia could only answer with a single tally. The Flyers would have to win game 6 at home or come back to Boston for game 7. The Flyers had won 2 games in their history in Boston. One of them had been game 2 of this series. The odds didn't seem in Philly's favour here.

In game 6, Boston came out and peppered Parent as they had in game 5. The shots were 16-7 at one point. It seemed like the momentum from game 5 had carried over to this game. But on a 4 on 3 powerplay (with Bobby Orr and Bobby Clarke in the penalty box following a scuffle in front of Gilly), Rick MacLeish tipped home Moose Dupont harmless looking point shot.

Here, Gilly matched Parent the rest of the way. He made several key stops. But it seemed like the Bruins weren't as good in the second and third period as they had in th first. Boston had several chances to tie it, but Parent got in the way. A penalty to Bobby Orr (and it's a debatable one, trust me) ended the Bruins' hope of a comeback. Parent and the Flyers won, 1-0. Parent got the Conn Smythe award as the Most Valuable Player of the 1974 playoffs. Who was the goalie for the Bruins? Oh!

And two seasons later, is now the right time to bring up that Gilbert won 17 straight from December 26, 1975 to March 5, 1976? That's an NHL record that still stands. Bobby Orr was hurt that year and did not play in any of those games (And sadly, would never again play for the Bruins). Gilbert was not in goal when Darryl Sittler got six goals and ten points on February 7, 1976.

In 1979, The Boston Bruins were actually the underdogs against the Mighty Montreal Canadians. This was not the final, but rather the semi-finals. But the favoured New York Islanders had lost to their rivals, the Rangers in the semi-finals. So whoever won the Boston / Montreal matchup was going to win the Stanley Cup. This series was going 7, although most people had the Canadians winning it in 6 or less games. The year before, it was the Habs over the Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals in six games. Gerry Cheevers was back in net for Boston (having come back in 1975/76) and lost the first two games to put the Cubs in an early 2-0 hole. How would this series go 6? Cheevers, too, didn't play that bad. But anything less that spectacular isn't going to be enough against this team. The Habs were going for their 4th straight Stanley Cup and 6th overall of the 1970s.

Gilbert came in to play game 3, and turned the series in the Bruins favour by stopping the Habs the next 2 games. The two teams then split games 5 and 6. Winner-take-all game 7 in Montreal!

And Gilly was hot. So hot that Danny Gallivan, the famed Hockey Night In Canada broadcaster, remarked that Gilbert reminded him "of the time Johnny Bower beat the Habs personally in 1964." Now that is praise!

Boston took a 3-1 lead into the third period. But a pair of spectacular assists by Guy Lafleur tied it. As you can see, Lafleur was tough to stop on this night. However, Rick Middleton's goal at 16:01 seemed to spell the end of the Canadians.

But, as we all know, Boston put too many men on the ice. At this point, I should point out that the Bruins were coached by someone named Don Cherry. What more do I need to say about him?

So Lafleur tied it with his majestic, never-to-be-forgotten goal. But, really, Gilly had no chance. There was only 74 seconds to play in the game. While Lafleur was certainly known for this speed on skates, that one-timer slapshot was as hard as I have ever seen.

On his next shift, Lafleur again beat Gilly with a long shot, but it went wide. The game and the series would be decided in OT.

Ken Dryden, the Habs' goalie, made a super save early in overtime off Boston's Don Marcotte. And then the Habs really turned it on!

If not for Gilbert, the series would have ended a lot sooner. Lafleur continued to have trouble getting off the shot he wanted. His accuracy seemed lost!

Taking a nice pass from Doug Risebrough, Lafleur one-timed it again. But it missed the net. Mario Tremblay came on to the ice the next shift and fed the puck in front. But no Canadian player could get this thing home!

When the Lafleur line came back on, it was Steve Shutt who got a shot away from a sharp angle. The puck was lose for a bit. Again, no Montreal player could do a thing with it.

The Habs won the draw to Gilbert's left and the puck came to Lafleur. He managed to get away a backhand that went wide. But later that shift, Lafleur got a shot off that was deflected by Jacques Lemaire. But Gilly was equal to the task.

Marcotte proceeded to almost win the game for the Bruins with a deflection of his own. Then Lafleur, on another rush, fanned on it. But the result was a knuckleball of sorts that that Gilles had to be careful with. Gilbert made the glove save.

After Dryden made an easy stop, Montreal almost won the game when a pass from Mario Tremblay centred to Yvon Lambert. But Lambert tipped it wide.

Lafleur's next shift saw him make a nice long pass to Shutt, who took a long shot that Gilbert made an easy save on. Lambert came off the bench and missed with a shot. Rejan Houle tried a turnaround shot that Gilly again made an easy save on.

Finally, Tremblay centred the puck and Lambert got the disk behind Gilbert.

A tough way to lose. But should that take away from Gilly's fine performace in this game, and in this series? I don't think so. A goalie is used by the coach in situations like these because of the belief that he will make the team better. Whether he wins or not, often the team has done as well as it can because the goalie gave them a chance to win. In 1974 and 1979, Gilles Gilbert gave the Boston Bruins a great chance to win, it's just they came up a little short.

No one should be forgotten for that.


The information used herein was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by The Hockey Summary Project. For more information about the Hockey Summary Project please visit:

http://hsp.flyershistory.com

or

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/hockey_summary_project/


References

Diamond, Dan. Total NHL. Toronto: Dan Diamond And Associates, 2003. Print.

Diamond, Dan. Total Stanley Cup: An Official Publication Of The National Hockey League. Toronto: Published in Canada by Total Sports Canada, 2000. Print.

Fischler, Stan. The All-New Hockey's 100. Scarborough: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. 1988. Print

Hughes, Morgan, Fischler Stan, Fischler Shirley, Joseph Romain, and James Duplacey. Hockey Chronicle: Year-By-Year History Of The National Hockey League. Lincolnwood: Publications International, 2007. Print.

Irvin, Dick. My 26 Stanley Cups: Memories of a Hockey Life. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001. Print.

Weekes, Don, and Kerry Banks. Hockey's Top 100: The Game's Greatest Goals. Vancouver: Greystone, 2010. Print.

Weekes, Don, and Kerry Banks. Hockey's Top 100: The Game's Greatest Records. Vancouver: Greystone, 2008. Print.

Official Site of the National Hockey League." NHL.com. VISA. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. <https://www.nhl.com>

Sports Reference LLC. Hockey-Reference.com - Hockey Statistics and History. http://www.hockey-reference.com/. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.

Hockey Summary Project. 10 Jan. 2001. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. <http://hsp.flyershistory.com>