It took nearly 25 minutes for them to get rolling, but once they did the Montreal Canadiens were nearly unstoppable as they rolled over the lowly Boston Bruins by a 6-0 score last night at the Montreal Forum. In the other two National Hockey League games, the Detroit Red Wings tripped the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens, while the Chicago Black Hawks got past the New York Rangers 6-4 in an afternoon contest at Madison Square Garden.
Six Share Scoring for Montreal
At Montreal, the Canadiens got six goals from six different players to complete their rout of the Bostons. The Bruins started out okay, holding Canadiens to a scoreless first period. That, however, was more a testament to the stalwart netminding of Ed Johnston as Montreal outshot Boston 11-9 in the opening 20 minutes.
Johnston was especially busy over the final nine minutes of the period, as it took Canadiens 11 minutes to register a shot on the Boston net.
The early part of the first was Montreal goalie Charlie Hodge’s time to shine as he made several scintillating saves on Boston tries.
It wasn’t until just shy of the five-minute mark of the middle frame that Montreal got on the board, thanks to a goal by defenseman Jacques Laperriere. Gilles Tremblay and John Ferguson added a couple of more before the end of the second and Montreal had a lead the Bruins wouldn’t be able to overcome.
Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer and Red Berenson completed the game’s offensive output in the final frame.
Hodge ended up with 22 saves on the night to record the shutout.
Canadiens lost forward Claude Larose with a hip injury during the game and will call up Leon Rochefort from Quebec Aces of the American Hockey League for tonight’s game in Detroit.
Crozier Dazzles Leafs
Roger Crozier, the diminutive goalkeeper of the Detroit Red Wings, put on a big show at Maple Leaf Gardens as the red-hot Wings took care of the Leafs by a 3-1 score.
Crozier made 29 saves for the Red Wings, including 21 over the first two periods. Toronto had their best chances in the middle frame, but the little goaltender kept the Leafs off the score sheet until 8:15 of the third period. Ron Ellis was the Toronto marksman on a power play when he was sent in alone on a beautiful pass by Dave Keon.
Keon played only sparingly, and wasn’t really himself all night due to a bruised shoulder that had been expected to keep him sidelined for a couple of weeks.
Norm Ullman got Detroit on the board with the only goal of the opening frame, and the Wings held that lead until the second minute of the third. Paul Henderson netted the game-winner at 1:32 with his 11th of the year. Henderson scored on a three-on-one break, using line mates Ullman and Floyd Smith as decoys to beat Leaf goalie Terry Sawchuk with a high, rising shot.
Ron Murphy added Detroit’s insurance marker with just over six minutes left in the game.
Sawchuk played well in goal for the Leafs and was the unfortunate victim of a couple of deflected goals. Ullman’s score in the first period went in off his skate, while Murphy’s goal was tipped in off a shot from Bert Marshall at the Toronto blue line.
Two Quick Ranger Goals Sink Hawks
The New York Rangers scored two goals only nine seconds apart in the first period against the Chicago Black Hawks en route to a 6-4 home ice win on Saturday afternoon. The two quick ones seemed to take away rapidly-building Chicago momentum.
The first-place Black Hawks had taken a 1-0 lead at 7:35 of the first on Phil Esposito’s 12th of the season. They were outplaying the Rangers by a wide margin and it looked to be only a matter of time before they broke the game wide open. Only Glenn Hall’s stellar goaltending over the first 14 minutes kept the game from becoming a rout.
Then, at 14:16 Jean Ratelle finally beat Hall from close in. Earl Ingarfield then connected nine seconds later, and the Hawks seemed to visibly sag. They never did manage to even the score after that.
Rangers scored twice more in the second period, thanks to tallies by Vic Hadfield and Jim Johnson. Johnson’s goal was his first in the NHL. Ken Hodge scored for Chicago to make it 4-2 at the end of two.
The third period saw the Rangers and Hawks swap pairs of goals. Hadfield netted his second of the game, and Wayne Hillman his third for New York. Chico Maki and Red Hay replied for the visitors.
The New York win spelled the end of several streaks. It was the Rangers’ first win over Chicago at home since December of 1964, a stretch of 11 games. It snapped the Hawks’ four-game winning string, and ended the Rangers losing skid at three games.