A full slate of six games in the National Hockey League last night including the Bruins getting back on the winning track out west in Los Angeles.
Bruins Snap Losing Streak
The Boston Bruins snapped their four-game winless streak with a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings at Long Beach, California. A crowd of 6,510 saw the Kings extend their losing streak to three games in final NHL game at the Long Beach Arena. The Kings will be moving to owner Jack Kent Cooke’s new building, dubbed the Fabulous Forum, in Inglewood at the end of the month.
Fred Stanfield led the Boston offence with two goals. Singles came from Phil Esposito, Tom Williams and Eddie Shack.
Howie Hughes, the most industrious Kings player over the past few games, and Real Lemieux managed to beat Bruins goaltender Eddie Johnston. Johnston was back in the Bruins goal after yielding the net to Gerry Cheevers the past two games.
Boston coach Harry Sinden was happy with his team’s work on the night. They executed the game plan he’s been preaching through the losing skein:
“We hit and checked tonight, something we didn’t do last week. And I guess the Kings were just the opposite.”
Kings coach Red Kelly has been disenchanted with the effort put forth by his team for the past couple of weeks. He had gone on record as saying that, regardless of the result last night, harsh practices will be the order of the day early this week:
“It’ll be just like training camp all over again. There’s two or three fellas overweight.”
Kelly was asked if he was planning on fines for anyone out of shape.
“Maybe even more serious than that,” was his reply.
Kelly went on to say that movement between the NHL team and the American Hockey League Springfield Kings was a possibility.
Stanfield’s two goals came just over two minutes apart in the third period and clinched the game for Boston.
Ted Green took a regular turn on defence for the Bruins. He had dressed for the club Friday night against Oakland but only tested his injured knee and played sparingly.
Leafs Double Rangers
Toronto Maple Leafs came out hitting in the first period against the New York Rangers last night at Maple Leaf Gardens. That, according to assistant coach King Clancy was the key to a game they won 4-2.
Leafs didn’t score in the opening frame, but, Clancy said, their aggressive hitting and forechecking set the tone for the entire evening.
“That was the period in which we won the hockey game. They (Leafs) wanted the man. Why, we had more hits in one period than in some games. We had 29 hits in the first period.”
If any one player was responsible for Toronto’s good start, it was Frank Mahovlich. The Big M, looking like the superstar he can be on any given night, was responsible for setting up Dave Keon for the opening goal, then scored one himself when he tipped in Allan Stanley’s point shot early in the third period. He was flying all night, especially in the opening 20 minutes when he delivered several thundering body checks on the much smaller Rangers.
Ron Ellis and Mike Walton also scored for Toronto. For Walton, it was his 17th of the season, tops on the club. Don Marshall and Orland Kurtenbach scored for the Rangers in the third.
Toronto outshot the Rangers 48-37. The high shot total would indicate that Punch Imlach’s line juggling paid off, although it was the one line left intact, the Keon-Mahovlich-George Armstrong unit, that was most effective. A new line of Walton with Ellis and Bob Pulford also scored twice.
Parent’s First Shutout Gives St. Louis the Blues
Philadelphia Fyers’ goalie Bernie Parent earned his first shutout of the season, making 25 saves as the Flyers nipped the St. Louis Blues 1-0 in St. Louis. It was an exciting contest featuring great goaltending by both teams, played before 7,570 at the venerable St. Louis Arena.
Parent was particularly sharp in the first period when the Blues pressed for the initial goal but were denied. He made 12 saves in the opening 20 minutes, many of the difficult variety.
The only goal of the game was scored by Flyers captain Lou Angotti in the final minute of the second period. He beat Blues goalie Glenn Hall on a backhand shot from a couple of feet in front after being fed a perfect pass from behind the net by Gary Dornhoefer.
Angotti has been a real Blues-killer this season. Of his five goals, four have come against St. Louis.
Blues looked like they were going to make a final push late in the game. With 1:13 to play coach Scotty Bowman summoned Hall to the bench in favour of an extra attacker. That strategy was nullified 21 seconds later when defenceman Bob Plager took an unnecessary charging penalty.
Flyers played without two of their top forwards, left winger Bill Sutherland and centre Ed Hoekstra.
Habs Edge Wings
Montreal Canadiens jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead, then needed a goal from Ralph Backstrom in the final frame to claim a narrow 4-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings in Montreal.
Montreal grabbed the two-goal lead on goals by rookie Danny Grant and Bobby Rousseau in the opening 20 minutes.
Gary Jarrett brought Detroit to within on at the midway mark of the second with his seventh of the year. But Gilles Tremblay restored the two-goal margin for Montreal with 16 seconds left in the period.
Red Wings stormed back in the third, outshooting the Habs 12-6. Alex Delvecchio made it 3-2 Montreal with a goal for Detroit at 9:19 and it looked like the Wings had the momentum and were getting the chances that would result in a tie game. But it wasn’t to be.
Just 32 seconds later Ralph Backstrom once again put Montreal up by two. The goal was the result of a brilliant rush up the middle by Rousseau, who played his best game of the season. As Rousseau came into the Detroit zone, he split the Wings defence pair of Bart Crashley and Bert Marshall. As they converged on him, he fed a beautiful drop pass to Backstrom, who was following up at great speed. Backstrom was all alone and sniped a quick shot past Roy Edwards in the Detroit goal.
Red Wings wouldn’t give up and once again pulled to within one goal thanks to Floyd Smith’s eighth of the year with two and a half minutes left. But it was too little and too late to make a difference. Habs goalie Gump Worsley shut the door the rest of the way.
Turning point in the game was early in the third, when Detroit had two consecutive power plays, thanks to minor penalties to Grant and Ted Harris. Defencemen Jacques Laperriere and right wing Claude Provost did yeoman work on the penalty kill to keep the Red Wings off the board.
Penguins Tie Hawks in the Third
Veteran Art Stratton scored early in the third period to lift the Pittsburgh Penguins into a 1-1 tie with the Chicago Black Hawks last night at Civic Arena in Pittsburgh before a fine crowd of 9,174.
Hawks might have run away with this game had it not been for an accident that put star centre Stan Mikita out of action. Mikita sustained a 17-stitch cut to the right ear when hit by the puck around the five-minute mark the second period. He had to be helped from the ice and did not return.
Mikita had been his usual threat up to that point. He set up the game’s first goal, a marker by Kenny Wharram at 11:39 of the first. He also created a couple of great scoring chances for linemate Doug Mohns early in the second before the injury.
Stratton’s tying goal at 1:12 of the final frame came on a bad break to the Hawks. A pass meant for Hawks’ captain Pierre Pilote near the Chicago blue line skipped over his stick and went directly to Stratton, who was moving quickly into the Chicago zone. He moved swiftly in on Chicago goalie Denis DeJordy and made a wonderful move, deking the Hawks netminder out of position and then gently guiding the puck into the open goal.
The tie game extended the Chicago road record to 12 games without a defeat. It was however, the first game in the past six that the Hawks have not won.
Three In a Row For Maniago
Minnesota North Stars goalkeeper Cesare Maniago registered his third straight shutout as the Stars blanked the Oakland Seals 1-0 in Oakland. Maniago put on a fine display of goaltending, making 28 saves against a determined Seals attack.
The North Stars had only 13 shots at Oakland goalie Charlie Hodge.
The only goal of the game came off the stick of veteran Parker MacDonald with just over five minutes left in the game.
North Stars coach Wren Blair was effusive in his praise of Maniago:
“Maniago won that game for us. He got a lot of help Friday, but at Oakland we looked so tired I would gladly have settled for a tie.
“But Cesare kept knocking out shot after shot and that kept us alive. I’m sure if we had fallen behind a couple of goals, we couldn’t have had enough strength to come back.”
50 Years Ago In Hockey 