It is good advice, since there is no real dominance in winning the Stanley Cup. It's a long season. Concentrate on a momentous moment short of hoisting the Cup.
It was interesting to read that Mr. Eskenazi chose to remember a season-ending Ranger home game that the Rangers needed the oddest way of winning in order to qualify for that season's Cup playoffs: Win and score lots of goals. Lots and lots of goals. Huh?
You have to be at least as old as I am to remember the game. I was at the game, and until Mr. Eskenzai wrote about it, had pretty much forgotten about it.
It was the last game of the 1969-1970 season, and the Rangers needed a win to tie in points in the standings for the 4th playoff spot, plus, they needed to score a basket number of goals so that if the Montreal Canadians lost their final game and left the standings tied in points, then the tie-breaker in the rules of the NHL at the time was the number of goals scored in the season. Yes, that's right. Those were the days.
The Rangers won their final game of the season against the Detroit Red Wings in a nationally televised, Sunday afternoon game. That gave them 92 points in the standings, which was a tie with the Montreal Canadians.
At that time, there were 12 teams in the league, freshly expanded from the original six. The Islanders weren't even a franchise yet.
That evening, the Canadians only had to win or tie their game against the Black Hawks, or finish with more goals scored in the season than the Rangers. The Rangers went into their afternoon game with 237 goals. At the start of the day, the Canadians had 241.
The Rangers needed the win, and score enough goals that would keep them ahead of Montreal's season ending total. Got that? Take your time.
The Rangers lost to Detroit the night before in Detroit. As was the custom at the time, the league would schedule a lot of back-to-back, home-away games with opponents. Detroit's win on Saturday night gave them a guaranteed playoff berth. They partied, and likely made their entrance into Madison Square Garden that Sunday afternoon feeling the effects.
Emile Francis, the Ranger coach and General Manager, (common at the time for one person to hold both positions), told his players before Sunday's game, "I told you this game is slippery. It's played on ice." They needed a win, and they needed goals. They got both.
After two periods the Rangers were ahead of the Red Wings 9-3, blasting the Detroit goalie Roger Crozier with 65 shots on goal in the game. The expected win was going to guarantee a tie with Montreal if they didn't win or tie that evening. Tied in the standings?. What's the tie-breaker? Season total of goals scored.
Francis, as smart a coach as baseball's Tony LaRussa, (who famously figured out that losing in the split post-strike season might be good) knew goals scored was going to mean something, and 9-3 might not be enough. Most hockey teams will pull the goalie when they need one goal to tie in the waning minutes of a game, creating an artificial power play of 6 skaters in an attempt to score the tying goal. Sometimes it works. Sometimes an empty net goal is scored and the game is basically over.
But pull the goalie ahead 9-3? That's what Emile did, delighting the fans who knew season ending goals scored can be a tie-breaker. And who better to stick it to the Canadians, a league team favorite who always made the playoffs?
The NHL league office then was in Montreal. Montreal got the rights to the No.1 Junior hockey player in the system every year, regardless of how they finished the year before. If the ice is slippery, it was also always tilted toward Montreal.
Did the Rangers score with their goalie Ed Giacomin pulled? No. Detroit managed two empty-netters, one by Gordie Howe for his 31st goal for the season. The fans were still delirious.
A Sunday afternoon game at the Garden might end at 4:00. Thus, the Rangers had to wait to see how Montreal did that night.
The Canadians lost 10-2 to Chicago. a score inflated by the fact that Montreal seeing the win and two points in the standings becoming out of reach, pulled their goal Rogie Vachon in the hopes of pumping in goals. For Montreal's coach Claude Ruel it didn't work. Chicago scored 5 empty netters! and Montreal was out of the playoffs! for the first time in 22 years. Oh joy, oh rapture! The next day I was on Cloud 9. The whole day. First round playoffs against the Bruins would start on Wednesday.
I remember the Monday at work when I chattered away with anyone who could stand me about the Rangers making the playoffs. I remember where I sat at work, and whose ear I chewed off sitting in front of me. I was a motor mouth.
Until I called up the NYT archive account of that April 5, 1970, bylined by Gerald Eskenzai, I had forgotten the detail that a newspaper like the NYT once gave to reporting on a sporting event in its 8 column format. Not only was there a hockey box score, but the players in the lineup for each team were listed. Note the number of games in the season: 76.
Archive photos of long ago games are great to look at. Look at goalie Crozier's mask. It looks like a Halloween mask and not the Formula 1 headgear helmets goalie's now wear. The skaters? No helmets.
The archive account has a sequence of three! photos of Roger Crozier flopping on the ice in various positions trying to keep the Rangers from scoring. The last photo in the stacked photos has the caption: "ZAM! Roger Crozier sprawling after Rod Stewart scored sixth goal. And there was a zap! zing! and sock! after that. (You gotta miss that type of reporting too.)
The sequence and the timing of the scoring is given, along with scorer and the assists and the number of goals for the season for the scorer were given!
In that historic 9-5 victory 5 different Rangers scored: Rod Gilbert 2 goals; Rod Stewart 2 goals; rookie Jack Egers 1 goal; Pete Stemkowski 1 goal, and Dave Balon 3 for the hat trick, ending his season with 33 goals.
Balon was the epitome of the journeyman player, No. 17. I would guess that was his career high in goals. He was noticeably bowlegged from growing up in Western Canada riding horses. From behind, you couldn't miss him.
So, how did that marvelous season end for the Rangers in the standings? Points: 92; Canadians 92 Rangers goals scored 246; Canadians 244. Eat ice chips.
Mr. Eskenazi ends his short piece in the WSJ: "My degree isn't in psychology, but I know what I've seen. Rangers fans were never as happy as on that afternoon at Madison Square Garden."
I'll agree I was happy. Delirious even. But if this year's Rangers got their power play to fire against the Florida Panthers and didn't lose three straight...
There's a great line in Friday's NYT on the Edmonton Oilers being in the finals starting on Saturday against the favored Panthers. Canadians might be happy that there is a Canadian based team in the finals, but unless you're from Edmonton, it's like living next to a neighbor who hit Lotto. Watching Connor McDavid score goals is not watching Mika Zibanejad score goals. (Which he, like others didn't do enough of.)
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment