In the aftermath of the Rangers’ inability to win what would have been a franchise-record 11th straight victory in Columbus on Sunday by instead going down 4-2 to the 29th-overall Blue Jackets, this might be instructive:
Of the 12 teams in NHL history that have posted winning streaks consisting of 13 games or more, only one has won the Stanley Cup, pending the outcome for the Oilers, who won 16 straight earlier in the season.
That was the 1981-82 Islanders, who broke the then-record of 14 by winning 15 straight — John Tonelli famously scoring the 3-2 winner against Colorado’s Chico Resch with 47 seconds remaining in the game in an era without overtime in the netminder’s first visit to the Coliseum since he was traded to the Rockies a year earlier — before capturing the third championship in four-Cup dynasty rung.
The other 10 teams that won 13 or more prior to this season did not make it. Some stunningly so.
The 1992-93 two-time defending champion Penguins broke the Islanders’ record by winning 17 straight before tying the Devils in the final game of the season. The Penguins rolled to first-overall with a 56-21-7 record, entered the playoffs as an overwhelming favorite for a three-peat, beat the Devils in a five-game first round … and then were shocked by the Islanders in Round Two on David Volek’s Game 7 goal in overtime.
The 1929-30 Bruins were the team to set the 14-game record the Islanders overcame 52 years (!!!) later. They finished atop the league with a 38-5-1 record with an .875 points percentage that stands as the best in NHL history. (To beat that, a team would have to finish with 144 points. The record is 135, set by last year’s Bruins)
Those Bruins from the Herbert Hoover administration featured seven Hall of Famers, including Eddie Shore, Dit Clapper and Tiny Thompson … and were beaten two games to none in the final by the mediocre Canadiens.
The powerhouse defending champion Bruins of 1970-71 won 13 straight en route to finishing atop the NHL at 57-14-7 while smashing multiple offensive records … only to be shocked in the first round by losing in seven games to neophyte goaltender Ken Dryden and the Canadiens.
If you believe in curses, perhaps a lengthy winning streak is up there with winning the Presidents’ Trophy.
Remembering Jean-Guy
Jean-Guy Talbot, who coached the Rangers to a 30-37-7 record and a preliminary-round playoff spot in his only year behind the bench in 1977-78, passed last Thursday at age 91.
The seven-time Cup-winning defenseman for Montreal is best remembered around these parts for the track suits he would wear during games while all other coaches wore coats and ties.
Talbot apparently was not much with arithmetic, as Dave Maloney remembers it. The Blueshirts’ MSG analyst was 21 at the time and in his second full season as an NHL defenseman.
“I was still kind of oblivious to everything going on around me,” said Maloney, whose club pushed the Sabres to three games in the best-of-three after Don Murdoch’s OT goal won Game 2. “But one thing I’ll never forget is this motivational pre-game speech from Jean-Guy.
“He’s up there and he goes [in a French accent], ‘Boys, we have 16 players, if everyone gets two shots we have 43 and we win the game!’
“I thought, ‘I don’t think that’s the right math.’”
Talbot was hired to coach the club by general manager John Ferguson, who had double duty the previous season behind the bench and in the front office after replacing Emile Francis in Nov. 1976.
“Jean-Guy was completely overshadowed by Fergy. He was the personality. He was the presence in the organization,” Maloney said of Ferguson, Montreal’s No. 22 who won five Cups in his eight-year career as one of the most feared and effective enforcers in the league. “Fergy was everywhere, he’d be on the ice.
“Mondays were not optionals for the young guys. We’d come on and there’d be Fergy. You’d take the puck away and it was, ‘Uh oh, it’s Fergy.’
“You had to watch out for an elbow.”
The 1977-78 team had 17 players who would go to the finals in 1978-79 after the addition of Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Don Maloney (in mid-season) … and Fred Shero, who replaced Ferguson as GM and Talbot as head coach when Garden impresario Sonny Werblin wiped the decks clean.
All the kids were there, including Maloney, Murdoch, Ron Greschner, Ron Duguay, Pat Hickey, Mike McEwen, Dave Farrish, Mario Marois and Lucien DeBlois.
Six of those players — Murdoch, McEwen, Farrish, DeBlois, Duguay and Marois — were selected in the 1976 and 1977 drafts over which Ferguson presided.
“Fergy loved the young guys,” Maloney said. “He loved us.”
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The one that got away
In a 10-year period from 1968-69 through 1977-78, the Rangers had Boom Boom Geoffrion, Larry Popein, Ron Stewart and Talbot serve stints as head coach (interspersed with a pair of runs by Francis and Ferguson). I can’t imagine how the drought lasted 54 years, can you?
We can talk about Jean Ratelle and Brad Park for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais; we can talk about waiving Eddie Giacomin and we can talk about sending Mike Murphy and Tom Williams to LA for Gilles Marotte or trading Curt Bennett for Ron Harris.
But the greatest mistake The Cat ever committed was not promoting Shero — who had played for the Blueshirts and had won multiple championships coaching in the organization — to Rangers head coach, instead allowing The Fog to escape to Philadelphia in 1971-72, a year after having won the CHL title with Omaha and two years after having won the AHL title with Buffalo.
What are the chances the Rangers trade Moose Dupon if Shero had been his coach?
