Stanley Cup
posted by Dave Stubbs at 6h12 EST on May 29
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby takes a first-star bow after his team's 3-2 victory in Game 3 last night.
Dave Sandford, Getty Images Sport
Post-game interview with:
DETROIT RED WINGS COACH MIKE BABCOCK
NHL's Frank Brown: Questions for Coach:
Q. You outshot them by a pretty big margin early on. I think it was 9-1, or 9-2. How much of a role did that play in tonight's outcome? Do you think things would have ended differently if you got one early?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I think tonight we got off to a pretty good start on the road. I thought we were under control. Then I thought they had a pretty good push after a timeout, scored a goal. And I thought they controlled the next, I don't know, 20 minutes of the game.
And then I thought we battled back pretty good. The third goal was a tough one for us to give up, just because it makes it hard to come back. But I thought we had a good push at the end.
The other thing, I didn't think we used our bench good enough tonight. I thought the specialty teams were early. I don't know if we used enough guys.
Continue reading "Game 3: Coaches' press conferences; notes" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 17h48 EST on May 28
posted by Dave Stubbs at 23h58 EST on May 26
Unhappy camper: Therrien after Game 2.
Claus Andersen, Getty Images
Post-Game Interview With:
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS COACH MICHEL THERRIEN
NHL's FRANK BROWN: Questions for Coach.
Q. You had a conversation with Malkin about him being the leader in this game. How do you explain him having zero shots in this game?
COACH MICHEL THERRIEN: It's really tough to generate offense against that team. They're good on obstruction. It's going to be tough to generate any type of offense, if the rules remain the same. So it's the first time we're facing a team that the obstruction is there, and we're having a hard time skating to take away ice.
We took two penalties tonight (against) the goalie. We never take penalties (against) the goalie in the playoffs. I'll tell you something, I reviewed those plays. He's a good actor. He goes to players, and he's diving. Took away our power play. Got to get focused. I know our players are frustrated right now. It's tough to play the game. But Osgood did the same thing against Dallas under (Mike) Ribeiro.
Our team never goes to goalie. We never did it. And we don't target the goalie. But this is, want to talk about experience, he goes to players, and he knows what to do, I guess.
Continue reading "Game 2: Coaches' press conferences; notes" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 22h38 EST on May 25
Mud Bruneteau
Scored the longest game's only goal
Detroit Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood was impressive in his 4-0 blanking of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Saturday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
But Osgood wasn't forced into overtime, obviously, quite unlike his late Detroit goaltending colleague Normie Smith on March 24/25, 1936.
Smith would make 90 saves to shut out the Montreal Maroons in the sixth overtime period at the Montreal Forum, outlasting Maroons goalie Lorne Chabot (66 saves) in what remains the longest game in NHL history.
We reconstructed that game in a June 1999 Gazette feature, through the eyes of Montreal fan Phil Caddell, presented here. And below it, in Part II, is a follow-up story that came about a few weeks later when the owner of the game puck, Lois Biley, came forward to dispute a key "fact" presented in the original. And Lois would know, being the niece of Chabot and, like Caddell, a spectator at the historic game.
Continue reading "Remembering the NHL's longest game, Part I" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 22h37 EST on May 25
The puck used by Detroit's Modère (Mud) Bruneteau on March 25, 1936, to beat Montreal Maroons goalie Lorne Chabot, thus ending the longest game in NHL history. The puck is on display at the Hall of Fame in Toronto.
Published July 3, 1999
DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette
The feature was 50 paragraphs long, and it had sailed smoothly through the first 40 when it took a torpedo broadside, launched from the kitchen table of Lois Biley.
Two Saturdays ago we profiled Phil Caddell and the National Hockey League's longest game, a semi-final playoff match at the Forum between the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Maroons on March 24-25, 1936. The game ended at 16:30 of the sixth overtime period when Red Wings rookie Modere (Mud) Bruneteau gave his club a 1-0 victory, slicing Detroit's 67th shot past Maroons goaltender Lorne Chabot.
Continue reading "Remembering the NHL's longest game, Part II" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 9h22 EST on May 22
Les Binkley
This Penguin had Canadiens connections
Les Binkley was the Pittsburgh Penguins' first No. 1 goaltender, recording a remarkable six shutouts in 54 games in his 1967-68 rookie season. Through five NHL seasons in front of less than stellar defence, he earned 11 shutouts, including a 4-0 whitewash of the Canadiens on March 3, 1971, making 23 of his 33 saves that night off the sticks of future Hall of Famers.
The native of Owen Sound, Ont., had more than a few Canadiens connections. Among them: one of Binkley's best friends in the game was future Habs enforcer John Ferguson, with whom he hung out and played on the 1960s AHL Cleveland Barons (loosely a Canadiens farm team) and later worked for in New York and Winnipeg as a goaltending coach and amateur scout with the Rangers and Jets.
Binkley fondly remembers long practices in Cleveland with the late Fergy, who paid special attention both to deking and working on getting his gloves off as quickly as he could. Now, at 73, Binkley is settling in to watch his Penguins take on the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final, eager to see whether Marc-André Fleury can backstop his alma mater to their third NHL title, Binkley having scouted for back-to-back champions in 1991 and '92.
Dave Stubbs profiles a charismatic netminder in today's Montreal Gazette. And surf below for an action photo from the 1970s – and the story of Binkley, then with the World Hockey Association's Toronto Toros, facing four penalty shots (two saves, two goals) from future daredevil Evel Knievel in a memorable, if twisted, intermission gimmick.
Continue reading "Penguins pioneer Binkley had Habs roots" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 22h03 EST on May 20
Mike Babcock
Will he wear his McGill tie?
Jeff Vinnick, NHLI via Getty Images
From our good friend, Earl (The Pearl) Zukerman, of McGill University, the hardest-working collegiate sports information officer in this country:
Mike Babcock, head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, is bidding to become the second McGill University graduate and the third coach in hockey history to win both the NHL’s Stanley Cup and the University Cup – the championship trophy of Canadian Interuniversity Sport; the Canadian equivalent of the NCAA.
The Red Wings are scheduled to open the best-of-seven final against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, on Saturday.
Babcock can follow in the footsteps of the legendary Lester Patrick, a former McGill hockey player, who later coached the New York Rangers to a Stanley Cup championship in both 1928 and 1933.
Currently a nominee for the Jack Adams trophy as NHL coach of the year, Babcock coached the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns to the 1994 CIS national championship at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
Continue reading "Wings' Babcock in famous McGill footsteps" »
posted by Dave Stubbs at 12h57 EST on May 19
Then-Habs coach Michel Therrien at the Molson Centre in the fall of 2002. Therrien has led the Pittsburgh Penguins to this season's Stanley Cup Final.
Richard Arless Jr., Gazette
Former Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien is headed to the Stanley Cup Final behind the bench of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"Mike," as he's now commonly known in the U.S., spent six seasons in the Canadiens organization before heading south, posting a 77-91-22 record in portions of three NHL seasons.
In 2001-02, Therrien led the Habs to their first playoff appearance in four seasons, going as far as the Eastern Conference semifinals where Montreal was bounced in six games by the Carolina Hurricanes.
He spent four seasons as a head coach in the American Hockey League with the Canadiens' AHL affiliates, the Fredericton Canadiens and Quebec Citadelles, compiling a 115-122-22 record, including a division championship with the Citadelles in 1999-00.
Now, Therrien and his Penguins begin preparations to face the Detroit Red Wings in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final, beginning Saturday.
In September 2001, a month after Sidney Crosby had turned 14, The Gazette's Dave Stubbs put 20 questions to Therrien in his Molson Centre office:
Continue reading "Coach Therrien four wins from Stanley Cup" »
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