Nitzy's Hockey Den

John Ferguson Battling in Game Two After Game Two of the 1967 Stanley Cup Finals, Maple Leafs coach Punch Imlach stated the obvious to the Montreal Gazette, "When you have two good netminders you're not taking a chance. Bower usually goes well against Montreal so I played a hunch that he could come through in this game. He came through and so did the rest of the team." After replacing Terry Sawchuk in Game One with 15 minutes remaining, Bower allowed one goal on eleven shots in Montreal's 6-2 victory. In the second match, Imlach started Bower and he went on to shutout the Habs 3-0. In the process of shutting out the Canadiens, Bower earned a $100 bonus from his team. Bower was not even aware of the extra money earned for a shutout, arranged by King Clancy. "I haven't heard anything about the bonus plan but I certainly won't argue against it," Bower declared. Ferguson Causing Trouble Again in Game Two Once returned home to Toronto the f...

Auston Matthews just completed a rookie season for the ages, as a teenager. He became only the 12th teenager in NHL history to notch at least 40 goals and only the 3rd since 1993. Below is the chart from hockey-reference.com showing all the teenagers to top 39 goals, which adds Yzerman and Crosby to the list. Now, of course, league-wide goal scoring rates have fluctuated greatly over the years from 8 goals per game in the early 1980's to just over 5 goals per game just prior to the lock-out of 2004. The 2016/17 season produced a scoring rate of 5.53. Hockey-ref has a wonderful statistic called Adjusted Goals in which seasons from different eras can be compared to an even playing field. Below is the list of teenagers above translated to Adjusted Goals: Stamkos 56 Nash 48 Carson 46 Matthews 44 Gretzky 43 Crosby 39 Nolan 37 Lemieux 34 Lindros 33 Hawerchuk 33 Hawerchuk 32 Bellows 32 Turgeon 31 Yzerman 31 Matthews' season looks even more impressive after a...

Toronto's rookies in 2016/17 are really doing some special things. Individually, Matthews, Marner and Nylander are setting team records seemingly every day now. Collectively, they're doing things rarely seen in NHL history. All three of the Leafs super rookies have at least 57 points. This has happened on one team only three other times in NHL history, all in an era when goal scoring was at least 30% higher than today.  Three Rookies, One Team 57 Points (Age in Brackets) Toronto 16/17 A.Matthews (19) 61 M.Marner (19) 57 W.Nylander (20) 57 Quebec 80/81 P.Stastny(24) 77-39-70-109 A.Stastny(21) 80-39-46-85 D.Hunter (20) 80-19-44-63 Edmonton 79/80 W.Gretzky (19) 79-51-86-137 B.MacDonald (26) 80-46-48-94 B.Callighen (26) 59-23-35-58 D.Lumley (25) 80-20-38-58 Hartford 79/80 M.Rogers (25) 80-44-61-105 M.Howe (24) 74-24-56-80 J.Douglas (22) 77-33-24-57 The last two teams on this list were transferred from the WHA and these "rookies" had played mult...

Charlie Conacher in Action Well, this is pretty cool. Recently I have been helping out a friend go through old hockey photos for his store  vintagesportsimages.com  . I am assisting in categorizing, curating and identifying literally 1000's of images that predominantly come from the collection of the Boston Globe. He owns the original negatives, and most of them have not ever been published. I think I found a doozy here. Above is a game-play shot of Maple Leaf great Charlie Conacher that I'm fairly sure has not ever been put online.  Below are the main two iconic images of Conacher, both staged in a photo shoot. The one in Vintage Sports Images collection is cropped from a far larger image, attached at the bottom, that gives more info about it. The photo is definitely from an actual game, against the Detroit Falcons. The Falcons were known as such for only two seasons, 1930/31 and 1931/32 before being re-branded the Red Wings. Coancher's teammate to the righ...

Here is the first of many awesome photos that adorns my den from my friend's vintage sport photo shop,  vintagesportsimages.com  . It's a fantastic shot of the 1964 Stanley Cup being handed over to George Armstrong by NHL President Clarence Campbell. What I love about the photo is the fact it's from ice-level, showing the expanse of Maple Leaf Gardens and the crowd within. Below is a photo from the Montreal Gazette the following day taken just after the initial photo was, with the players gathered around the Cup. In addition to Armstrong (who had 13 points in 14 playoff games) and Campbell, identifying the rest of the players in the shot is fairly easy. Dave Keon (7 goals, 9 points) is in the near distance in between The Cup and Campbell and Carl Brewer (played 12 of 14 games) is behind Armstrong. The legendary King Clancy is seen stepping on the centre redline, he was assistant general manager of the Leafs. In the helmet is Billy Harris with Larry Hillman and Jim Pa...

Leafs vs. Red Wings: Bower, Baun, Howe and... Here's another fine photo from the collection of my friends at  vintagesportsimages.com  in North Vancouver. I'm helping them out identifying old hockey pics, most of which have not been seen online. This photo clearly shows Johnny Bower in net and Leaf defender Bobby Baun and Gordie Howe. To narrow down the year, the database at  nhluniforms.com  is invaluable. The Leafs added a blue shoulder yoke to their white jersey in 1958 and they then added numbers on sleeves in 1962/63. This photo then has to fall between that '58 and '62. The Detroit #8 player has a few possibilities among guys who shot left-handed during this era. Johnny Wilson wore the number in 1958/59 but the facial features don't match here. Gary Aldcorn wore number 8 in 1960/61 but his hair was a bit more receding; Murray Oliver also wore it the same year, his hair looks a bit different but there does appear to be a matching scar on the left side o...

With Sidney Crosby collecting his 1000th point recently, there was lots of chatter about how few games he needed and his career points per game. Many pointed out that his 1.32 points/game over his career is the 5th best all-time behind only Gretzky, Lemieux, Bossy and Orr. This is a rather impressive feat considering the era in which Crosby has played is one of the lowest scoring ever.  On social media, folks were wondering about how the leaders would look if Adjusted Points was used to even out the different eras. Adjusted Points is calculated at  hockey-reference.com  and equalizes for Goals/game, roster size and length of league schedule. For example, it calculates Gordie Howe's 49 goals in 1952/53 as an Adjusted Goal total of 65 when compared to all eras.  Using Adjusted Points, Crosby does indeed get a bump due to the era he plays in, his Points/game climbs to 1.52 while Lemieux drops to 1.68 and Gretzky drops a bit further to 1...