Oldest Goalie Playoff Debut, Curtis McElhinney

Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Curtis McElhinney started his first career NHL playoff game at the age of 35 years, 343 days. He is now the oldest goalie to make his playoff debut in NHL history. The two previous oldest were Les Binkley of the 1969/70 Pittsburgh Penguins and Ross Brooks of the 1972/73 Boston Bruins; each were over 35 years old, but younger than McElhinney.
With 219 career games before a playoff start, McElhinney had played more career regular season games than Binkley and Brooks combined. By the 1970 playoffs Binkley had played 131 regular season matches for the Pens after over 600 starts in the minors. Binkley would win five of seven playoff games in 1970 with a 2.10 GAA in his only NHL playoff appearances. He played a total of ten additional playoff games with the Ottawa Nationals/Toronto Toros franchise of the WHA before retiring from professional hockey in in 1976 at the age of 41.
Ross Brooks had posted a record of 11-1-3 for the Bruins in his rookie season of 1972/73 primarily as a back-up to Eddie Johnston. On March 3, 1973 the Bruins acquired Jacques Plante from Toronto and he proceeded to go 7-1 with a 2.00 GAA down the stretch and began the playoffs as the Bruins starting goalie. After Plante lost the first two games to the Rangers, coach Bep Guidloin turned back to Johnston for the third and fourth games. EJ won the third game but lost 4-0 in the fourth. This is when Coach Bep called on the elderly rookie, Ross Brooks. Eddie Johnston was quoted in the Montreal Gazette, "That was a tough spot to put Brooksie in. After all it was his first playoff start in our biggest game. I think they wanted to give him a chance to play, and I know he wanted to play." Brooks allowed three goals on eleven shots in the first period and with the Bruins down 3-2 he apparently asked to be taken out. He was quoted, "I don't want to be a hero, there was a lot of money on the line here for me and everyone else...I told them how I felt at the end of the period and left it up to them." Brooks was yanked. Johnston was put in for the second and the Bruins lost 6-3 and were eliminated. Brooks went 26-6-3 over the next two seasons backing-up Gilles Gilbert but played no further playoff games. 


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