Nitzy's Hockey Den

To be fair to Robbie Irons, the three minute career refers only to his time in the NHL. The Toronto born goaltender played well over 500 professional games and was a mainstay during the 1970's for the Fort Wayne Komets of the International Hockey League. The story of his three minute NHL stint is a good one and involves two of the greatest goalies of all time. Two seasons after leading the OHA in shutouts with the Kitchener Rangers, 22 year-old Robbie Irons found himself a member of the St. Louis Blues. The Blues were in their second year of existence and featured in net 37 year-old Glenn Hall and 39 year-old Jacques Plante. The two future Hall of Famers had been splitting the goaltending duties evenly and on the night of November 13, 1968 nothing had changed. Hall got the start at home against the New York Rangers, while Plante got the night off and was upstairs in the press box helping out on the television broadcast. This meant that young Robbie Irons was the dressed back-...

The Toronto Maple Leafs are an improved defensive team. They were before they acquired Jonathan Bernier this week and are improved that much more now that they possess two high quality young goaltenders. During the 2012/13 regular season, Toronto's defence improved dramatically and allowed a half goal per game less than the previous season. This occurred despite the fact their shots allowed per game rose from 30.8 to 32.3. During this year's playoffs versus Boston, that number climbed to an amazing 39.0 per game. Luckily the Maple Leafs have a goaltender that appears to thrive under a large barrage of rubber. Over James Reimer's three seasons encompassing 104 games, he has faced over 30 shots just about half of the time. By contrast, his new goaltending partner has faced over 30 shots in a game a mere 12 times over his 62 game career. He'd better get used to, and embrace the thought of more action in front of him. Toronto's 32.3 shots allowed ranked 4th worse...

Patrick Kane is your 2013 Conn Smythe Trophy winner. The question is, was he the right choice? Personally, I like to look at the individual numbers from Cup Finals and give them a little more weight when selecting a Conn Smythe winner. Below are the numbers from the Finals only: (GP-G-A-PTS +/-) Lucic 6-4-2-6 -1 Kane 6-3-2-5 +3 Krejci 6-0-5-5 -1 Bergeron 6-4-0-4 -2 Paille 6-2-2-4 +1 Bickell 6-1-3-4 +5 Chara 6-1-3-4 -5 Frolik 6-0-4-4 +1 Sharp 6-2-0-2 -3 Toews 6-0-2-2 +4 Keith 6-0-2-2 +4 Marchand 6-0-0-0 -3 And the goaltenders (W-L-GAA-SvPct) Crawford     4-2 2.07 .929 Rask             2-4 2.21 .932 Kane did indeed tally five points in the final and ended up with 19 points, good for second place in playoff scoring. Those 19 points tied Milan Lucic who led the final round with 4 goals and 6 points. In my opinion however the Hawks true most valuable player...

    Sidney Crosby had it in the bag. When he broke his jaw on March 30, he was unquestionably the Most Valuable Player in the NHL. He was the scoring leader up until the very last week of the season despite not playing. Even though Ovechkin went on a goal scoring tear in the second half, many people feel that Crosby still should have been awarded the Hart. The final voting was indeed one of the closest ever ending up 1,090 to 1,058. Ovechkin garnered 50 first place votes to Crosby's 46. Some of the issues raised are the fact that Ovechkin played in the weakest divison in the NHL and the fact that he ended up with the same number of points as Crosby while playing 12 more games. Let's have a look. 1.) Ovechkin played in the weakest divison in the NHL . It's true that Ovie played 18 of his 48 games against the Southeast Division, and he definitely had far more success playing these opponents, the truth is, Crosby also lit up the Southeast. vs. SE Div. Ovechkin...

  Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. Most hockey fans know that these two players, more known as Boston Bruins also played with Chicago at points in their careers. Of course there have been many players over the years to have played for both of this season's Cup finalists. You can make a pretty good squad from the names of guys who played for both the Hawks and Bruins in their careers. CENTRE Phil Esposito Bronco Horvath Pit Martin Gus Bodnar Dave Creighton Cal Gardner Mike Walton RIGHT WING Ken Hodge Jim McKenzie Jerry Toppazzini Bobby Schmautz Murray Balfour LEFT WING Roy Conacher Al Secord Fred Stanfield Vic Stasiuk Ed Sandford Bep Guidolin Ron Murphy   DEFENCE Bobby Orr Pat Stapleton Doug Mohns Mike O'Connell Dick Redmond Reggie Fleming GOALIE Frank Brimsek Harry Lumley Jim Henry Eddie Johnston Bert Gardiner Jack Gelineau Paul Bibeault Robbie Tallas

Awesome 1971 Sports Illustrated cover featuring Phil & Tony Esposito Boston vs Chicago. March 17, 1946 #8 Murray Henderson, #15 Milt Schmidt, #15 Woody Dumart    Boston vs. Chicago. Dec. 19, 1957 #12 Ed Litzenberger, #1 Don Simmons  1972 Hockey mag picturing both Espos, Wayne Cashman, Bill White, Pat Stapleton & Stan Mikita All of whom played on Team Canada 1972.   1970 Sports Illustrated picturing the late Keith Magnuson

I picked this one up on the weekend, an old program for the Toronto Marlboros Junior squad. The cool thing is that it is signed by Leaf great Ted Kennedy. Teeder was 46 at the time and 15 years removed from his playing career. This was from the third game of the Ontario League Semi-Finals against the Peterborough Petes. Check out the names on the rosters of the teams below. The Marlboros won this game 5-3 to make the series 2 to 1 for the Petes. This would be the last win of the season for Toronto as Peterborough would win the next two games. They would then sweep Ottawa to advance to the Memorial Cup. They would eventually lose in the final to Cornwall.   One interesting player from this game is Doug Gibson of the Petes. He led Peterboro in scoring that season with 99 points. We would lead the OHA in playoff scoring with 29 points in 15 games. After a 114 point season in 1972/73 Gibson was drafted in the 3rd round by both the Boston Bruins and ...

    The latest additions to The Den, a couple of old Western Hockey League programs of the Victoria Maple Leafs. I've got a fair amount of programs from this old league which used to rival the AHL in terms of top minor-pro circuit, these are my first two of Victoria.       The Victoria Maple Leafs existed for only three seasons from 1964/65 to 1966/67 as the franchise had transferred from Denver. They would become the Phoenix Roadrunners in 1967.     The Vic Leafs were the secondary farm-team for the Toronto Maple Leafs after the AHL Rochester Americans and ahead of Tulsa Oilers in the Central League. The big star for Victoria was Milan Marcetta who led the team in scoring each of the three seasons and would play three games for Toronto in the 1967 playoffs earning his name on the Stanley Cup.  

Twenty years ago today. Montreal Forum. Stanley Cup Finals. I was there. My only Stanley Cup Final, and man what a game to have witnessed. This was game two of the 1993 Stanley Cup Final between Montreal and Los Angeles. My buddy and I were living in Monreal at the time and had camped out in front of The Forum a week earlier for these tickets. We spent a thankfully pleasant night about twentieth in a line of Habs fans that eventually numbered well into the hundreds. The night was spent literally on the sidewalk on Ste. Catherine St. right in front of the Forum. We had sleeping bags and a battery operated radio and honestly  we barely slept the entire night. Most of the kids in front of us were there on behalf of scalpers and being paid fifty bucks to buy the maximum amount of tickets allowed. My pal and I were on much more of a budget and opted for only the standing room tickets for games Two and Seven. I think we paid 30 apiece for them. So, there we wer...