Game 604
Maple Leafs 3, Canadiens 2 (OT)
Sunday, February 10, 1985
Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario
Oh, well…one out of two ain’t bad.
On the other hand, what’s truly bad is that after losing deservedly 6-2 on Saturday, the Canadiens lost a 3-2 game in overtime last night they should have won laughing.
Consider this: They outshot the Toronto Maple Leafs 40-16 in regulation time and the best they could do with that wondrous outpouring of power was score two goals.
What happened after that is what occurs so often.
With one minute and 22 seconds remaining in the overtime, and after the Canadiens had come within a hair of scoring the winning goal, Rick Vaive blasted a shot beyond Steve Penney.
The Canadiens deserved better last night…much better. The reason they didn’t was Toronto goalie Tim Bernhardt, and a smaller reason was that they were fairly invisible during last night’s first period before coming on with 32 shots in the last two periods and three more in the overtime.
The Canadiens’ problems in the first period produced goals by Vaive and John Anderson, thus placing the Canadiens in the position of having to play catch-up hockey.
Then, when Mario Tremblay and Mike McPhee erased the Toronto margin, they were faced with the excellence of Toronto goaltender Bernhardt, who handled an onslaught of shots.
Add this: The teams were locked up 2-2 early in the third period and here comes Greg Terrion on a breakaway from the Canadiens blue line.
Terrion has scored eight goals in 50 games for the Leafs this season. He showed why last night on his breakaway. Steve Penney made the stop appear painfully easy.
Terrion, however, did much better with a rising shot in the final seconds of regulation time. Penney made it look easy with his glove grab, but it wasn’t. On the winning goal by Vaive, however, no chance. It was simply a matter of a great goal-scorer producing one of his exquisite shots.
Bernhardt, however, the bloomin’ star of this game, producing huge saves repeatedly and twice on Mats Naslund, the first time with fewer than five minutes remaining.
Dazzling.
Naslund had been sent alone at the Toronto blue line. Unlike Terrion, Naslund swept in on the Maple Leafs goaltender at full speed. He made the right move, going to his right and aiming for the short side. Bernhardt stretched mightily to make the save.
Then there was a stop on Chris Chelios with less than a minute remaining, another on Naslund in the overtime, and on and on.
The Canadiens finally reported from the team bus last night. Trouble is, they waited until the second period to do so and by that time they had fallen into a 2-0 trench on late first-period goals by Vaive and Anderson.
One of the reasons they did was that they were being out-muscled in their own zone. The Anderson goal, for example, was a matter of Vaive tossing around his weight in the crease and upsetting Steve Penney long enough for a routine shot to pop free to an unattended Anderson.
The Good Guys’ reaction to their first-period problems was a 19-2 shooting margin in the second period and, predictably, they slipped a couple beyond Bernhardt and came within a hair of getting another couple. In view of their shooting margin, the wonder of it is that they didn’t even though the Canadiens have made a career out of frittering away scoring opportunities this season.
Tremblay’s goal came while Stewart Gavin was in the penalty box for slashing in the fourth minute of the period, and McPhee scored his 10th of the season from the edge of the crease after redirecting an Alfie Turcotte pass.
The Canadiens played the last two periods without Mark Hunter, who came up lame early in the second period and is due to visit the doctor today.
On Saturday, Mario Tremblay and Mats Naslund scored the first and last goals of the game both power plays. Along the way, however, the Maple Leafs provided the Canadiens with nightmares. Six of them…at least.
The Leafs got goals from Mirko Frycer and Russ Courtnall in the first period, and padded their lead to 5-1 on second-period goals by Anderson, Peter Ihnacak and Vaive. Terrion completed the embarrassment with a shorthanded goal in the eighth minute of the final period.
Story originally published in The Montréal Gazette, February 11, 1985
BOXSCORE
1st Period
MTL PEN – 02:57 – Svoboda, holding
MTL PEN – 07:42 – Chelios, slashing
TOR PEN – 07:42 – Daoust, slashing
TOR PEN – 12:11 – Frycer, high sticking
TOR GOAL – 14:42 – Vaive (Gavin, Kitchen)
MTL PEN – 17:47 – Nilan, tripping
TOR PP GOAL – 19:10 – Anderson (Vaive, Leeman)
2nd Period
TOR PEN – 02:32 – Gavin, slashing
MTL PP GOAL – 03:42 – Tremblay (Smith, Chelios)
MTL PEN – 03:46 – Nilan, slashing + fighting major
TOR PEN – 03:46 – Brubaker, slashing + fighting major
TOR PEN – 05:13 – Ihnacak, hooking
MTL GOAL – 08:21 – McPhee (Turcotte, Walter)
MTL PEN – 13:01 – Kurvers, high sticking
TOR PEN – 13:27 – Vaive, slashing
MTL PEN – 16:38 – Tremblay, roughing double minor
TOR PEN – 16:38 – Daoust, roughing double minor
3rd Period
MTL PEN – 14:02 – McPhee, slashing
TOR PEN – 14:02 – Vaive, slashing
MTL PEN – 18:01 – Tremblay, roughing
TOR PEN – 18:01 – Jackson, roughing
Overtime
TOR GOAL – 03:38 – Vaive (Daoust)
GOALTENDERS
TOR – Bernhardt (W, 41-43)
MTL – Penney (L, 16-19)
SHOTS ON GOAL
TOR – 8+2+6+3 = 19
MTL – 8+19+13+3 = 43
ROSTERS
TOR – Goaltenders: Tim Bernhardt. Defence: Jim Benning, Todd Gill, Bill Kitchen, Bob McGill, Gary Nylund, Bill Root. Forwards: John Anderson, Jeff Brubaker, Russ Courtnall, Dan Daoust, Miroslav Frycer, Stew Gavin, Peter Ihnacak, Jeff Jackson, Wes Jarvis, Gary Leeman, Greg Terrion, Rick Vaive (C).
MTL – Goaltenders: Steve Penney, Doug Soetaert. Defence: Chris Chelios, Tom Kurvers, Craig Ludwig, Larry Robinson, Petr Svoboda. Forwards: Serge Boisvert, Guy Carbonneau, Bob Gainey (C), Mark Hunter, Mike McPhee, Mats Naslund, John Newberry, Chris Nilan, Bobby Smith, Mario Tremblay, Alfie Turcotte, Ryan Walter.
TEAM RECORDS
TOR – 13-35-7 (.300)
MTL – 27-19-10 (.571)
ATTENDANCE
16,182
Two Solitudes 