Keith Magnuson

by Doug Feldmann

  Now, Hull was working hard to shake free of the pesky Houle. Hull never liked when people compared him to Orr; he said that unlike a defenseman, a forward does not have as much room to work on the ice. While Orr might have as much as 70 feet of ice with which to work up speed, a forward may only go 10 feet before a defender is on him. Houle, despite his inexperience, had done a yeoman’s job in the series and was not letting up on Hull in the seventh game.

  With two minutes left in the first period, Hull finally found an opportunity to return Houle’s original greeting on the bus five years earlier. He drilled Houle with a hard body check, as the rookie—understandably frustrated with the monumental and futile task of trying to halt the seasoned Chicago star all series long—retaliated by holding Hull as Bobby tried to skate away from the scene, and Houle was sent to the penalty box for two minutes by Ashley.

  The Hawks took advantage. Manning the point near the blue line on the power play where he could unload his deadly slap shot, Hull received the draw in the Canadiens’ zone and triggered his howitzer on Dryden. The goalie got a solid piece of the puck, but it caromed into a favorable position near Dennis Hull at the left faceoff circle. Hull poked it into the back of the net off Dryden’s glove for a 1–0 Chicago lead with 48 seconds remaining in the period. The Hawks had not been shut out during the 1970–71 season, and the goal by Dennis—who, provided the Hawks would win this evening, would likely have been on his way to the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP—assured that it would stay that way.

  As the first period ended, the play had been largely in the Hawks’ favor, with Chicago outshooting Montreal 12–6 and the majority of the Canadiens’ chances having come from beyond 50 feet.

  At the horn, Wittenberg got in another commercial statement: “When your goal is pleasing everyone, set the table with Leon’s Polish Sausage.”

  Shortly into the second period, Magnuson was called for a tripping penalty on Pete Mahovlich, leaving him and other Hawks players concerned that the momentum might shift. But the penalty-killing unit, led by surprise special-teams appearances by Angotti and Nesterenko, was able to stave off the Montreal attack. Mahovlich later tried to induce Nesterenko to fight while Magnuson was in the box, but the veteran did not take the bait. As gritty, old-school, defensive-minded players, Nesterenko and Angotti were two men in whom Reay had confidence in shutting down the Canadiens scorers. Angotti, in a story told by Wittenberg, once told his Hawks teammates that he was so tough he could eat broken glass—and showed them so by punching out a window in the Mayfair Bar in Detroit and subsequently chewing on the shards.

  Despite the successful ending of Magnuson’s penalty time, observers wondered why Bobby Hull and Mikita were seeing less ice time as the second period wore on, particularly in penalty situations. The Hawks received another penalty at 4:14 for too many men on the ice, but once again, Hull and Mikita were not part of the shorthanded unit. Nonetheless, this infraction was successfully endured as well, and at the 7:00 mark Chicago forward Danny O’Shea was sent free with the puck into the Montreal zone on Dryden for another scoring chance. He hit the post on a rocket blast from the slot, but Martin gathered the puck moments later on the same shift, wheeled in behind the net, and slid it out in front to give O’Shea another opportunity. Danny gathered the puck in his skates, fired, and the shot got past Dryden for a 2–0 lead. It was O’Shea’s first goal in the playoffs since the opening round with Philadelphia, and delirious fans scattered debris all over the ice as another nail was seemingly hammered into the Montreal coffin.

  “I remember looking over to the Canadiens bench after that goal and their heads were hanging down,” Koroll said. “I thought right there that we had them.”

  Pettit, however, warned his listeners not to be too optimistic. He pointed out the Montreal club had rebounded from a two-goal deficit in the past, and had overcome a 3–2 Hawks lead in the third period in Game 6 in Montreal. Perhaps to inject comfort, Wittenberg then interrupted with another mention of a local sponsor: “It’s Su Casa for exciting Mexican food.”

  One minute after O’Shea’s goal, Bobby Hull hit the crossbar on a blazing wrist shot in front of the Montreal net which would have made the score 3–0. The puck bounced straight back out toward Hull but in a slightly downward angle from the lower half of the bar, suggesting that the Hawks had been within a fraction of an inch of taking a commanding lead.

  Some hockey historians, such as Joyce, questioned why Reay continued to take most of his stars off the ice after the halfway point of the second period, and instead gave more ice time to Chicago’s third and fourth lines. In any event, it was hard to keep track of the ice time for each player with any precision, as line shifts were held to under a minute by both coaches because of the searing heat in the building, and thus, the exacerbated fatigue of the skaters.

  Even so, the play seemed to accelerate through the second period. Koroll was bumped hard after the whistle by Houle at the 12:00 mark. As the two started jawing at each other, over wandered the two cops, Magnuson and Ferguson, to see what was going on; more shoving ensued before they also had to be separated. The scene led, however, to Magnuson being given another minor penalty 30 seconds later for a hard check on Ferguson. A Montreal penalty a moment later produced a four-on-four situation, which presumably would open up the ice to both teams’ top skaters—but once again, Hull and Mikita were not sent into the game.

  At the other end of the ice, Esposito was noticeably tired. He had been the exclusive goalie down the stretch and all the way through the playoffs. The only other goaltender currently available on the roster was Ken Brown, who had played only one period in one game during the regular season. Now, it was apparent that the Stadium heat was affecting Esposito as well, as he hung an arm on the crossbar for extra rest at every opportunity.

  As the second period was nearing its close, Lemaire dumped the puck into the Hawks’ end so his team could make a line change. As players occasionally do in such circumstances, Lemaire decided at the last moment to send the puck on goal, even though he was near center ice and there was virtually no chance of scoring from that distance. Lemaire wound up and “uncorked a booming slapshot,” according to Denault, and then, “turning toward the bench, he soon heard a commotion from the crowd and turned to see that the puck had ended up in the Chicago net behind a dejected Tony Esposito.”

  As Lemaire’s shot was en route, the fatigued Esposito’s knees had buckled momentarily, which caused the puck to graze only a portion of his glove before it flew past him. The puck had traveled a long way “through a humid haze which hung over the ice,” according to Verdi, and “carried high into the net beyond Esposito’s belated right-hand reach.” A few minutes earlier on the radio, Pettit himself had used the word “hazy” to describe the deteriorating, heated conditions inside the Stadium.

  Lemaire knew that he had immediately lifted his team with his inadvertent score. “It was the strangest goal I have ever scored that was so important,” he said. “We started to skate better and play better. They [the Black Hawks] dropped. It was a matter of time after that. It turned the game.”

  Mere moments after Lemaire’s goal, listeners on WMAQ had their broadcast of the game suddenly interrupted by an emergency weather message. A tornado watch had been issued for all of the northern Illinois area until 4:00 the following morning.

  As the broadcast returned to Pettit at the Stadium, Lemaire was already in the process of striking again. He found Richard in front of the Hawks goal and Henri poked it past Esposito at the 18:20 mark. Once again it had been a four-on-four situation, and yet again, Hull and Mikita were not on the ice.

  The tally evened the score 2–2, and suddenly made the third period a winner-take-all, tension-heightened, 20-minute segment of hockey.

  “I spent both intermissions praying,” Magnuson would later admit.

  Two and a half minutes into the third period, Houle—now playing like a veteran—spotted R
ichard jumping over the boards near the Hawks’ blue line, coming on a line shift. Reacting instinctively, Houle pounced on the opportunity and slid him a pass. In his haste to do so, however, Houle somewhat misfired. “When Rejean got the puck to me,” Richard would later describe, “the puck was in my skates, and was in the skates all the way in.”

  Magnuson reacted late to the play and dug his legs back into a retreat, his bad knee flashing with pain as he scrambled as best he could to get back into a defensive position. Worried he was about to get beaten, Magnuson then turned and sprinted with Richard stride-for-stride, much as a football defender would do against a pass receiver going deep. Richard gathered the puck into his stick blade and found a burst of speed, turning the corner on the defenseman at the faceoff circle in the Chicago zone, and zoomed in directly on Esposito. In a final attempt to stop him, Magnuson stretched out his body in a full-length dive. Straining for all he was worth, he lunged out his stick with his belly on the ice in a frantic attempt to send the attacker off course. “I didn’t see Richard,” Keith would explain later about the moment the Montreal veteran had hopped onto the ice from the Montreal bench. “Then when I did, I thought I had him poke-checked away from the puck. I should have tripped him or something.”

  Richard eventually got around Magnuson and put one fake on Esposito. “I made a move toward Esposito with the stick,” Richard said, “then I pulled the puck back and got it over him after he went down.” The red light behind the glass went on, signaling the score that gave the Canadiens their first lead in the game at 3–2 as the crowd was instantly hushed.

  “A comparatively quiet Chicago Stadium…” Pettit uttered a moment later.

  Mikita, who according to Dennis Hull had an extreme dislike of Richard, went after the Montreal winger in the final minutes with every chance he got. “Stan was as good as Wayne Gretzky with the puck,” Hull stated, “but in order to get an image of what Stan was like as a player, you also have to imagine Gretzky hacking and spearing opponents…when they [Mikita and Richard] were both sitting in the penalty box, I liked to go over to hear them scream at each other. It was the worst stuff you could imagine.”

  Suddenly in desperation mode, Reay now ordered more forecheckers into the Montreal zone to increase the pressure on their defensemen and Dryden. Opportunities abounded, with Harper and Pete Mahovlich both called for hooking penalties at 5:36 and 7:27, respectively. But despite several golden chances, the Hawks could not even the score in those power-play situations.

  Near the 11:00 mark, Pinder made his first appearance of the game. Still in Reay’s doghouse since his absence during the semifinal series against the Rangers and the public comments he made about the coach, Pinder was still considered by Reay to be a top scoring threat and thus was given several important minutes in the final half of the third period. He, like several other Hawks forwards, bombarded Dryden with everything he could muster. The rookie goaltender held firm, however, turning away every assault. “The Canadiens clung to their slender lead while the final minutes were ticking off on the big clock suspended over center ice,” wrote Bill Brennan of The Sporting News in watching the analog hands of the Stadium’s ancient timekeeping piece dissipate, much to the Chicago players’ and fans’ anxiety.

  Dryden, withstanding 33 Chicago shots compared to the mere 25 his club had put on Esposito, would hold on for the 3–2 win, and he was mobbed by his teammates at the final horn. It was only the second time the visiting team had won a seventh game in Stanley Cup Finals history, and the result kept Chicago from claiming its first sports championship since the Bears had taken the NFL title in 1963.

  When the Stanley Cup was presented to the Canadiens moments later at center ice, many noticed that MacNeil was not smiling. Beliveau, the longtime captain and legend, having now completed his final game, proudly hoisted the revered trophy over his head and began the traditional team skate. The fans in the Stadium gave him, the Canadiens, and their Black Hawks—despite having already disappeared into the home dressing room—a standing ovation.

  In Montreal’s saunalike locker room, there were handshakes all around. Decided Henri Richard, it was “the best of the 10 Stanley Cups I’ve won. This one was the best because we were so much the underdogs.” Frank Mahovlich, basking in his NHL-record 14 playoff goals, agreed wholeheartedly with a smile and nod from a few feet away. And, in an abrupt change of tune, the Canadiens were now apparently behind their head coach. “We played with confidence because he had confidence in us,” Guy Lapointe said of MacNeil. MacNeil, in fact, had been unofficially named the game’s “first star” by broadcaster Howie Meeker of Hockey Night in Canada, in respect to the coach’s pushing all the right buttons. And while there was now speculation that MacNeil was suddenly popular in Montreal and would remain the team’s leader, GM Sam Pollock instead installed Scotty Bowman as Canadiens coach for the following season. Thus ended the mysteriously brief yet successful run for MacNeil in Montreal; he would return to a head coaching role with the Atlanta and Calgary Flames in the 1980s, and then briefly for Calgary once again as a 67-year-old in 2002.

  Dryden, having been summoned to the NHL for the first time only a couple of months earlier, had played in all 20 playoff games for the Canadiens. He took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as the top man in the postseason—although, ironically, he could still qualify for Calder Trophy in the following season, as he did not play in the requisite 25 regular season games. In admiration of Dryden’s performance and style, Scott Young of the Toronto Telegram wrote, “I never saw a goaltender before who, when the play becomes ultra-confusing in front of him, stretched out across the goal like a lady on a chaise lounge. Low shots plunked into his pads and the high ones he caught.” Esposito had a better overall record in the 1971 playoffs than Dryden (11–7 with a 2.19 goals-against average and two shutouts versus Dryden’s 12–8, 3.00 GAA, and no shutouts), but in the ultimate battle of the two magnificent goalies, Dryden was able to give his team the deciding, final nudge at the wire.

  Over in the Black Hawks’ own steam bath of a dressing room, the atmosphere was naturally the polar opposite.

  “They gave everything they had,” Reay said simply of his charges. The coach chose not to bury his outfit, but rather to praise it. “I’m mighty proud of this team. We had a great season, and it’s too bad we couldn’t have won it. We have nothing to be ashamed of. You just couldn’t play in two tougher series than the ones we were in against New York and the Canadiens.”

  The local writers, meanwhile, were mournful about what could have been. “The Hawks lost this game and the Cup by inches,” penned Damata for the Tribune. “And those inches meant the difference between a water shower and a champagne dousing. Those tiny bubbles poured like Niagara Falls in the Canadiens clubhouse, mixing with perspiration that ran down the faces of the giggling champions and spattering onto the already sopping red uniforms. It was honest sweat, for the Canadiens, too, gave all they had.”

  The Chicago players felt the pain most of all.

  “I still wake up at night, wishing it was a nightmare,” Cliff would say years later about Game 7. “That one really hurt.”

  In much the same way that baseball’s World Series winner’s share was coveted before big salaries came into the picture, the 1971 matchup between Montreal and Chicago was one of the last true, heroic, old-time standoffs in the Stanley Cup Finals. It was reported after Game 7 that Montreal defenseman Jacques Laperriere had played since Game 2 with a broken arm. Nearly half the roster on each side was enduring some sort of significant ailment, such as Magnuson’s knee and Stapleton’s lacerated face, but all of them fought through it. As Joe Falls of The Sporting News said, “You come across something like that seventh game of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the cauldron of the Chicago Stadium and suddenly everything becomes worthwhile… You are experiencing high emotions…You sit there and you’re so nervous it is almost painful. And yet, it is a sweet, excruciating pain.”

 
But the laurels of bravery do not dress the wounds of defeat. Magnuson sat in a forlorn stare in front of his locker when he got off the ice after Game 7, just like when he went into a foul mood back in Wadena or Saskatoon as a boy when his team lost a simple pick-up game. He had no desire to remove his equipment. Capturing the emotional moment was a photographer; later, local artist Rosa Lee would use the photo to compose a portrait of Magnuson with his face in his hands, with only his red hair and his white No. 3 home jersey visible.

  Naturally, he was stewing over the Richard goal in the third period. “A play,” Verdi recounted, “which brought from Keith Magnuson some regretful, almost tearful, words, a bit too harsh: ‘I lost the game for us.’” Magnuson then began to wonder about other turning points in the series in which he was involved—would things have turned out differently in Game 6 if he had fought with Ferguson? Would his team have raised the Cup if he had done battle with Pete Mahovlich, perhaps giving his team some spirit as his bouts had done during the regular season?

  Right then and there, in the basement of the Chicago Stadium, Magnuson considered quitting the game. He would never be welcome in Chicago again, he figured, and would have to move out of the area—whether he decided to continue with hockey as a career or not, he reasoned.

  However, as it always does, time would give him perspective.

  As the Hawks and their fans headed out onto Madison Street, they would have to ponder the defeat while driving through the impending storms belting the Chicago area.

  When Magnuson showed up inside the Stadium the next day to gather a few personal items, it was a stark example of how the atmosphere in a place can change within a matter of hours.