Welcome back to a brand new deep dive. I am really
excited to jump in with you today because we
have a fantastic stack of sources in front of
us. We really do. We are taking a comprehensive
look at the 1971 to 1972 NHL season. And the
mission for this deep dive is to explore a year
that was profoundly transitional. Right. It's
not just your standard history lesson. Exactly.
It's occasionally bizarre, absolutely record
breaking. And we really want to get into the
why of it all. It's not just about who hoisted
the Stanley Cup. No, not at all. It's about how
the league was wrestling with its own outdated
rules, rival leagues popping up, and some truly
larger -than -life personalities. It really is
a perfect snapshot in time to analyze. Just to
set the scene for you listening, this is the
55th season of the NHL. We're looking at a 14
-team league, and they are playing a really grueling
78 -game schedule. Which is a heavy workload,
especially back then. It is. But what makes this
specific season so fascinating is the broader
context. The NHL is standing right on the precipice
of massive change. The way the game is played,
the business of sports. It's all about to shift
radically. OK, let's unpack this because I want
to start with something that feels like an absolute
glitch in the matrix. Oh, I know where you're
going with this. I call it the Dryden paradox
because it perfectly illustrates how weird the
league's internal rules were at the time. Ken
Dryden, the legendary goaltender for the Montreal
Canadiens. An absolute icon. Right. So during
this 71 -72 season, Dryden wins the Calder Memorial
Trophy. That is the award for Rookie of the Year.
Yes. But the wild thing is, he won Rookie of
the Year despite having already won the Conn
Smythe Trophy for Playoff MVP the year prior.
Which is just, it breaks your brain a little
bit to think about. How does that even happen?
Well, it all came down to a very strict, almost
comical technicality in the rulebook. The previous
year, Dryden had only played six regular season
games. Just six. Right. Before he goes on this
legendary playoff run and wins the Stanley Cup
and the MVP. But because he only logged those
six regular season appearances, the NHL bureaucracy
ruled that his rookie status was technically
intact for the next season. It's so literal.
It is. It shows a league that is governed by
black and white rules that completely ignore
common sense. You have a proven champion, the
literal MVP of the playoffs, coming back in the
fall to compete against actual first -year players
for a rookie award. It really highlights a front
office that had no idea how to handle edge cases
yet. Exactly. And the actual rookie class that
year was nothing to scoff at either. No, it was
phenomenal. You look at the amateur draft, and
the Canadians selected Guy Lafleur first overall.
A huge moment for Montreal. Massive. And Le Fleur
comes in and scores 29 goals in his first season,
which by any normal standard is a great start.
A fantastic rookie campaign. But he faced this
incredibly harsh criticism from the fans. They
felt he was underperforming because they were
unfairly comparing him to Jean Beliveau, who
had just retired. The psychological weight on
Le Fleur must have been just immense. He wasn't
just drafted to play right wing. He was drafted
to replace a living deity. The ghost of the franchise.
Right. He was carrying the entire history of
Montreal on his shoulders. But then you contrast
that with a different market. Look at Buffalo's
Rick Martin. Oh, yeah. Completely different vibe.
Completely. Martin didn't have that historical
burden weighing him down. He just quietly went
out. and set a brand new rookie record with 44
goals. 44 goals is Ricky. Yeah, he was just allowed
to play his game. It shows how much a player's
environment really dictates their early success.
It really does. But the extremes of this season
weren't just about the young guys. If we flip
to the other end of the age spectrum, the goalie
situations are just, they're wild. They really
are. Take Gump Worsley. He is 43 years old during
this season. And the Minnesota North stars just
leave him completely unprotected in the waiver
draft. And for anyone who might be new to that
term, the waiver draft was a system where teams
could leave certain players off their protected
list. Any other team could just claim them for
a set fee. Right. So Minnesota is basically hanging
a sign on Worsley saying he's washed up. Take
him. A very public demotion. Exactly. And nobody
claims him. He goes unclaimed. So Worsley stays
in Minnesota. And what does he do? He goes out
and leads the entire league with a 2 .12 goals
against average. Talk about a spite -fueled season.
Seriously. A 43 -year -old veteran just running
on pure instinct and vengeance. It's incredible.
But then our sources point out a much darker
goalie story from that same year. Bruce Gamble
of the Philadelphia Flyers. Yeah, that is a sobering
one. It really is. In February, Gamble is playing
in Vancouver against the Canucks, and he literally
suffers a heart attack on the ice. It's terrifying.
He doesn't just feel chest pains and skate to
the bench. No. He stays in the net. He plays
through an active cardiac event, finishes the
game, and secures a 3 -1 win for his team. It's
hard to even wrap your head around that. He was
facing slap shots while his heart was failing.
He was forced to retire immediately after the
game once they finally got him to a hospital.
It strips away so much of the romanticism we
attach to the tough guy eras of sports. It's
a stark reminder of the lack of medical oversight
back then. It really grounds you. The sheer physical
toll of playing in the early 70s. Minimal equipment,
reactionary medical care. You were just expected
to play through the pain. literally putting their
lives on the line. It's heavy. But moving from
that incredible resilience and net over to Boston,
we have another goalie making a completely different
kind of history. Jerry Cheevers. Yes. Jerry Cheevers
goes 33 straight games undefeated. A milestone
that has never been surpassed. Never. Just think
about the mental endurance to not have a single
off night for a month, especially when teams
were scoring so much back then. Well, to pull
off a streak like that, you need a dialed in
goalie, but you also need an absolute juggernaut
of a team in front of them. And the Bruins were
exactly that. They finished first in the league
with 119 points. They scored 330 goals. Insane
offensive production. But it wasn't just a Boston
coronation all year. The race for the Art Ross
trophy, the scoring title, was incredibly dramatic.
Oh, the Jonatel story. Right. For a huge chunk
of the year, Jon Ratel of the New York Rangers
was actually leading Boston's Phil Esposito in
points. And it's such a heartbreak because Rattel
is having a career year matching Esposito stride
for stride. And then he breaks his ankle in a
game against California. Sideline for over a
month. Over a month. And the crazy part is he
still finishes third in the league and scoring
with 109 points. That really paints a picture
of how dominant Boston and New York were. Esposito
finishes first with 133 points, Bobby Orris second
with 117, and then Rattel in third. But the wildest
stat about Rattel's production is who finished
right behind him. His line mates. The famous
Rangers -Jag line, which stood for goal A game.
Right. Rattel, Vic Hadfield, and Rod Gilbert.
Hadfield finishes fourth in the league, Gilbert
finishes fifth. You have three guys from the
exact same forward line finishing third, fourth,
and fifth in NHL scoring. It's a complete statistical
anomaly. It speaks to a level of chemistry that
you almost never see in professional sports.
It's like they were playing a totally different
game. And while Boston and New York were putting
on a clinic in the East, there was a huge milestone
in the West Division, too. Bobby Hall. Right.
Bobby Hull scores his 600th NHL goal in March.
This was his final year in Chicago. He finishes
second in goals to Esposito. It was really the
end of an era for him there. It was. You're watching
a legend cap off his time with a franchise that
defined him. And that theme of transition, it
wasn't just individual players closing chapters.
The league itself was being forced to reckon
with its own structural flaws. Here's where it
gets really interesting. The playoff bracket
changed. A huge shift. Because it shows how teams
were learning to manipulate the rules. So for
decades, the NHL had this set format. First place
placed third place in the division and second
place placed fourth. But the league had just
dealt with this massive scandal the year prior
because of that format. The Minnesota North Stars
had essentially tanked. They did. They intentionally
lost games just to finish fourth instead of third.
Now to a casual fan. Losing on purpose to get
a lower seed sounds completely crazy. Totally
counterintuitive. But mathematically, it made
cold, calculated sense. Because if Minnesota
finished third, they would have had to play the
first place Chicago Blackhawks, who were a powerhouse.
By tanking to fourth, they got an easier matchup
against the second place team. It gained the
system perfectly. And to make matters worse for
the league executives, look at the East division
from that same previous year. The Boston Bruins
fight tooth and nail to finish in first place.
And their reward for being the best team is a
brutal series against the third place Montreal
Canadiens. Who end up winning the whole Stanley
Cup. Exactly. So the number one team gets punished
and a team that tanks gets rewarded. The executives
just didn't anticipate modern game theory. They
assumed professional pride would keep everyone
trying to win every single game. They were very
naive. They really were. So because of that embarrassment,
the league had to alter the format for the 71
-72 season. They changed it so first plays played
fourth and second played third. Patching loopholes
in real time. Exactly. They had to protect the
integrity of the regular season. But the NHL
wasn't just fighting internal fires. They were
bracing for a massive external threat, too. A
true existential threat to their monopoly. The
World Hockey Association. Right. The WHA was
looming. And because of that, the NHL hastily
granted expansion franchises to Atlanta and Long
Island to start playing the very next year. It
was so rushed compared to the expansions in 67
and 70. It was a preemptive strike, purely defensive.
The NHL wanted to plant their flag in those key
television markets before the WHA could get a
foothold. It's literally corporate warfare playing
out through stadium leases. Yes. But despite
all that front office panic, the actual playoffs
that year were just incredible. The on -ice product
was fantastic. The quarterfinals had some amazing
drama. The Rangers beat the defending champion
Canadians, and they got huge contributions from
unheralded guys like Walt Chukas. Gritty depth
players stepping up. Exactly. And over in the
West, St. Louis beats Minnesota in a grueling
seven -game series. Game seven had a historic
moment. Kevin O'Shea scores in overtime. The
first time a road team ever won a Game 7 in overtime
in playoff history. Can you imagine being a fan
in the Met Center for that? The tension of Game
7 OT and then just crushing dead silence when
the road team scores. Ultimate heartbreak. But
as close as those first round series were, the
semifinals completely shattered any illusion
of parity in the league. It really showed the
gap between the good teams and the elite teams.
The Rangers swept Chicago in four straight, but
what Boston did to St. Louis? It was on another
planet. It was a demolition. Boston swept the
Blues and set a record for the most goals in
a four -game series. They outscored St. Louis
28 -8. 28 goals in four games. Seven goals a
night against a playoff team. You're not just
beating an opponent at that point. You are breaking
their spirit. It's incredibly demoralizing. Totally.
And it inevitably set up this massive heavyweight
clash in the finals. Boston versus New York.
The eighth time they met in the finals. And Boston
takes it four games to two, their second Stanley
Cup in three seasons. They cemented themselves
as the defining dynasty of that era. And you
really cannot talk about that Bruins dynasty
without dedicating some serious time to Bobby
Orr. Oh, absolutely. He is the defining figure.
If you just synthesize his end of year awards,
the impact is undeniable. Tell them what he won.
Well, he won the consmized. for playoff MVP,
but he also won the Hart Trophy for a regular
season MVP and the Norris Trophy for best defenseman.
Just hoarding hardware. And to top it off, he
led the entire league in plus minus. Which, for
anyone who doesn't track advanced stats, plus
minus is basically a measure of goal differential
when that specific player is on the ice. Right.
It proves that when Bobby Orr stepped on the
ice, Great things happen for Boston and terrible
things happen to the other team. He just fundamentally
warped the geometry of the sport. He really did.
Traditionally, defensemen stayed back. They defended.
But Orr controlled the entire pace of the game
from the blue line. He had 80 assists, 117 points.
He was an offensive catalyst in a way no one
had ever seen from that position. He didn't just
fit into Boston's system. His skill set became
the system. So what does this all mean for you
listening? When you zoom out and look at the
71 -72 season, it's not just about the Bruins
lifting a silver chalice. No, it's about a league
caught in profound transition. You've got raw
rookies like LeFleur carrying immense burdens,
aging warriors like Bruce Gamble playing through
literal heart attack. You have the league scrambling
to fix rulebooks so teams stop mathematically
tanking. You have unbreakable records set by
guys like Jerry Cheevers. And above it all, this
terrifying Boston Bruins dynasty operating at
its absolute peak. It's brilliant hockey, but
honestly, its true historical significance might
actually lie in what was looming just over the
horizon. What do you mean? There's a detail in
our sources that raises a really fascinating
question. Something for you to ponder long after
we wrap up today. Let's hear it. If you look
at the last game section of the text. It lists
several notable players retiring from the NHL
that year. Guys like John McKenzie, Ted Green,
Eric Nestorenko. Established veterans. Exactly.
But the text adds a critical note. They didn't
stop playing professional hockey. They retired
from the NHL specifically to go play in the newly
formed World Hockey Association. Wow. The talent
drain begins. Precisely. The NHL thought they
could just preempt the WHA with those rushed
expansion teams and front office maneuvers. But
they couldn't stop the actual players from walking
out the door. No, they couldn't. So I leave you
with this thought. What happens to the power
dynamics, the salaries, and the sheer quality
of play in a comfortable sports monopoly when
a well -funded rebel league kicks open the doors
and starts poaching your top talent? That is
a massive cliffhanger. It changes the sport forever
the very next year. A cliffhanger that changed
the economics and the power structure of hockey
permanently. Thank you so much for joining us
on this deep dive into a truly weird, wild, and
historic season. Keep asking questions, keep
looking beyond the box scores, and stay insanely
curious. We'll catch you next time.