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...