Forty years ago yesterday was the Final Game of the 1981 Canada Cup tournament. I remember watching the game as an avid 10 year-old hockey nut and being very disappointed with the outcome. The Soviets, led by goaltender Vladislav Tretiak and a young KLM line thoroughly embarrassed the Canadians by a score of 8-1. I re-watched the game on youtube and my favourite part was seeing all the old commercials on the broadcast. That sad fact alone pretty much sums up the game for me.
Soviet coach, Victor Tikhonov said after the match, "We didn't expect to win by such a score. We expected the game would be very difficult. If we played them again tomorrow or the day after, I would not forecast the result." The first period of the game was as the coach expected as Canada outshot his team 12-4 with Tretiak making three or four big saves in close. "Tretiak did what he had to do as he always does, but there was a lot more to their win than him," stated Larry Robinson after the loss. Indeed, Tretiak was supported by some timely scoring mainly from the younger Soviet players. 24 year-old Sergei Shepelev potted a hat-trick within ten minutes of game time to end the 2nd period and start the 3rd. According to Canadian coach Scotty Bowman, Shepelev's first goal to make it 2-1 was the toughest, "The second goal was the one that hurt the most, the one that took the most out of us. We'd fought back and tied that game, then they took the lead on a bad score." Denis Potvin summed it up, "They got the big saves from their goalie, we didn't". Mike Liut definitely didn't have his best game, but on most Soviet goals, there was nary a Canadian defender within arms-length.
The third Shepelev goal made it 4-1 early in the 3rd period, but in re-watching the match the back-breaker happened two minutes later. With Canada on the powerplay, Wayne Gretzky made a horrendous centering pass in the offensive zone right on the stick of Vladimir Krutov. There was literally no Canadian within 20 feet of the target. Krutov proceeded to freeze Guy Lafleur (who was caught playing defence) with a fake slapshot then beat Liut cleanly with a 30 foot writer. Gretzky was rendered mostly invisible throughout the Final. During the Soviets final practice they actually worked on their "Kid Defence" an approach to halting Gretzky's effectiveness, especially when he sets up behind the net. It appeared to have worked.
Liut himself said afterward, "When the game is over, the game is over; only the time remains. All it was was a cosmetic score. We stopped playing, and they didn't." Another thing Liut stopped doing was making saves, he allowed 5 goals on a mere 8 shots in the 3rd period. Coach Bowman concluded, "It wasn't a seven-goal game but we have no excuses. The real scoring chances were very even, maybe 14-12 for them but we saw what a really strong goalie can do." He added, "It's tough to play so long and put so much into it and then lose. We had a pretty good tournament, but we didn't win the last game."
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