Playoff Game 34
Canadiens 5, Maple Leafs 2
Stanley Cup Finals, Game 3
Tuesday, April 12, 1960
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario
The Montréal Canadiens, moving inexorably toward their fifth successive Stanley Cup, stopped the energetic Maple Leafs 5-2 in the Gardens last night to move into a 3-0 lead in this best of seven final.
The fourth game will be played here tomorrow, and only the most optimistic observers are predicting that the Leafs can prolong the series beyond four games.
The Leafs played their best hockey of the series in last night’s game. They battled the Canadiens ferociously for the first two periods, but the Montréal team never at any time gave the impression that it was worried.
The Leafs, who fell behind early in the first two games of this series in Montréal, managed to correct that situation, only to run into several other problems. The Canadiens led 1-0 after the first period, 3-1 after two, but they rapped in two more in the third period before the Leafs came back to score their second goal.
Phil Goyette, the clever centre on the Canadiens’ third line, scored two of their goals. Don Marshall, who has a roving assignment on at least two lines, Maurice “Rocket” Richard and Henri Richard scored the other goals. Johnny Wilson and Bert Olmstead were the scorers for the Leafs.
Maurice Richard’s goal, shortly after the halfway mark of the third period, brought loud cheering from the crowd of 13,307, a tribute to the fiery, forceful play of the Canadiens’ great right winger.
This was the 82nd playoff goal for the 38 year old Richard, and on several occasions in last night’s game it looked as if he had rolled back the years. He was skating, shooting and fighting for the puck like the fiercely determined Richard of a few years back.
Jacques Plante, the Canadiens’ masked goalkeeper, threw back the Leafs’ big challenge in the first two periods with many brilliant stops. And he was just as alert in the final 20 minutes, although the Leafs didn’t have as many clean-cut scoring opportunities. Throughout the game, the Leafs outshot the Canadiens 34-31.
Marshall, who plays offence or defence with equal dexterity, was another outstanding Montréal player. And the Montréal defence of Doug Harvey, Junior Langlois, Tom Johnson and Jean-Guy Talbot was much more effective, much more alert at clearing pucks than its Toronto counterpart.
Even more discouraging to the Leafs was the fact that Dick Duff, a left winger whose play has been strangely subdued all season, chose this game for one of his more dynamic efforts of the season. But even with Duff’s great contribution, the Leafs still couldn’t convince the Canadiens.
Marshall scored the game’s first goal at 13:54 of the first period, after both teams had kept the crowd aroused with the fastest, crispest hockey of the series.
Marshall, after picking up a pass from Bill Hicke, carried over the right side of the Leafs blue line. Confronted by Leaf defenceman Bobby Baun, Marshall faked a shot. Baun dropped and Marshall, using Baun as a screen, rifled the puck in the short side from about 25 feet out.
Goyette scored the first of his two goals early in the second period. Claude Provost, a persistent checker all the way, knocked the puck off Leaf defenceman Tim Horton’s stick to Goyette. Goyette cruised in close and when goalkeeper Johnny Bower dropped, the Montréal player lifted the puck high into the net.
Henri Richard made it 3-0 late in the period on a play that he engineered himself. He checked Horton near centre ice, and although the Leaf defenceman harassed him all the way in, Richard, from the faceoff circle to Bower’s right, flung a backhander into the Leafs net.
Less than a minute later, Wilson scored the Leafs’ first goal. Defenceman Carl Brewer darted into the Montréal zone and fired a hard shot at Plante. Wilson, racing in to pick up a possible rebound, was hit on the leg by the rebounding puck and it bounced back into the Montréal net.
Goyette scored again in the third period, directly from a faceoff to Bower’s right. Instead of trying for the draw, Goyette poked the puck away from Baun, lunged after it, and threw a hard shot across Bower into the far side of the net.
Then Maurice Richard, who had been foiled on four or five earlier sorties, scored his first goal of this semester’s playoffs to make it 5-1 for the Canadiens.
He threw the puck in front of the Toronto net, where brother Henri and Dickie Moore slapped at it. Maurice ripped around the Toronto net with his old time flair, picked up the puck on the other side, cut back in front and fired a backhander into the right side of the Toronto net.
Olmstead scored the Leafs’ second goal with 13 seconds left in the game and Canadien Henri Richard in the penalty box for hooking Red Kelly. Plante was lying on the ice after making an earlier save when Olmstead shovelled in a backhander.
NOTES: Larry Regan, who played on a line with Duff and George Armstrong, gave it his customary spirited effort but, like a few other Leafs, he didn’t get many breaks…Plante made one of his best stops in the second period on Ron Stewart, when the Leaf right winger broke in and fired from about 12 feet. Plante threw himself at the puck to block it. The Canadiens were leading 2-0 at the time…Baun and Henri Richard became involved in a scrap after Wilson’s goal in the second period, and were sent off with majors.
Story originally published in The Globe & Mail, April 13, 1960
BOXSCORE
1st Period
MTL PEN – 07:27 – Talbot, tripping
MTL GOAL – 13:54 – Marshall (Hicke)
TOR PEN – 19:17 – Edmundson, high sticking
2nd Period
MTL GOAL – 00:21 – Goyette (Provost, Pronovost)
MTL PEN – 10:26 – Backstrom, tripping
MTL GOAL – 15:27 – H. Richard
TOR GOAL – 16:10 – Wilson (Harris, Brewer)
TOR PEN – 16:19 – Baun, fighting major
MTL PEN – 16:19 – H. Richard, fighting major
3rd Period
TOR PEN – 02:48 – Baun, holding
TOR PEN – 06:53 – Brewer, tripping
MTL GOAL – 08:57 – Goyette
MTL GOAL – 10:07 – M. Richard (H. Richard, Moore)
MTL PEN – 18:33 – H. Richard, hooking
TOR PP GOAL – 19:47 – Olmstead (Kelly, Edmundson)
GOALTENDERS
MTL – Plante (W, 32-34)
TOR – Bower (L, 26-31)
SHOTS ON GOAL
MTL – 9+12+10 = 31
TOR – 10+12+12 = 34
ROSTERS
MTL – Goaltenders: Jacques Plante. Defence: Doug Harvey, Tom Johnson, Albert Langlois, Jean-Guy Talbot, Bob Turner. Forwards: Ralph Backstrom, Jean Béliveau, Marcel Bonin, Bernie Geoffrion, Phil Goyette, Bill Hicke, Don Marshall, Dickie Moore, André Pronovost, Claude Provost, Henri Richard, Maurice Richard (C).
TOR – Goaltenders: Johnny Bower. Defence: Bobby Baun, Carl Brewer, Tim Horton, Red Kelly, Allan Stanley. Forwards: George Armstrong (C), Dick Duff, Garry Edmundson, Gerry Ehman, Billy Harris, Gerry James, Frank Mahovlich, Bert Olmstead, Bob Pulford, Larry Regan, Ron Stewart, Johnny Wilson.
ATTENDANCE
13,307
Two Solitudes 