blood gin
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- Jan 17, 2017
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Raw footage from the stands. Habs/Canucks 78-79
- Thread starter blood gin
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The Panther
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Yeah, so this game is on March 8th, 1979, a couple of months before the Habs won their 4th straight Stanley Cup. It's Bowman's last season behind their bench. Montreal was actually in the midst of a mini-slump at this moment, this game being their only win during a 7-game stretch (the worst such slump the team had between 1975 and 1979). The Canadiens finished with 115 points that year, but that was 1 point behind the Islanders for 1st overall.
The Canucks, with Harry Neale behind the bench, were 2nd (what?) in the 1.0 version Smythe division, with a .394 season, (yes, they went .394 and made the playoffs), achieved by finishing ahead of St. Louis and Colorado. At this moment, the Canucks were in the midst of a 10-game winless streak (five days after this game, they lost 9-3 to Pittsburgh). Amazingly, the Canucks beat Philly in game one of the playoffs, but then lost two straight handily and were toast.
Looking at Vancouver's season record, they were horrible offensively and at 5-on-5. Their leading scorer was Ron Sedlbauer with a paltry 56 points. They had a remarkable eight different players at -20 or worse on the season, including Don Lever at -43, Sedlbauer at -35, and Lars Lindgren and Jere Gillis at -31. Exactly one player on the whole team was a 'plus' for the season (Dennis Ververgaert), and he dressed in only 35 games (and two years later was out of the League).
Not certain, but I believe that is Dunc Wilson (first time I've heard of him) in net for Vancouver, poor bastard. He appeared in 17 games, went 2-10 on the season with a 4.17 GAA (sounds bad, but he was 4.84 the season prior for Pittsburgh). His NHL career was over two months later, so I am guessing this was one of his final (maybe very last?) NHL games played. Seriously, how does that third goal make it into the net? [In fairness to him, it appears from the stat-line that he'd had a really strong season in 1976-77 for Pittsburgh, so maybe he did have it in him.]
Well, it's obvious from a quick look at these high(low?)lights that the Canucks' players are just standing around, barely moving and not even trying to play defence. I like how when Gainey scores, he's like, "Meh... this is easy", and casually skates back to the bench.
The Canucks, with Harry Neale behind the bench, were 2nd (what?) in the 1.0 version Smythe division, with a .394 season, (yes, they went .394 and made the playoffs), achieved by finishing ahead of St. Louis and Colorado. At this moment, the Canucks were in the midst of a 10-game winless streak (five days after this game, they lost 9-3 to Pittsburgh). Amazingly, the Canucks beat Philly in game one of the playoffs, but then lost two straight handily and were toast.
Looking at Vancouver's season record, they were horrible offensively and at 5-on-5. Their leading scorer was Ron Sedlbauer with a paltry 56 points. They had a remarkable eight different players at -20 or worse on the season, including Don Lever at -43, Sedlbauer at -35, and Lars Lindgren and Jere Gillis at -31. Exactly one player on the whole team was a 'plus' for the season (Dennis Ververgaert), and he dressed in only 35 games (and two years later was out of the League).
Not certain, but I believe that is Dunc Wilson (first time I've heard of him) in net for Vancouver, poor bastard. He appeared in 17 games, went 2-10 on the season with a 4.17 GAA (sounds bad, but he was 4.84 the season prior for Pittsburgh). His NHL career was over two months later, so I am guessing this was one of his final (maybe very last?) NHL games played. Seriously, how does that third goal make it into the net? [In fairness to him, it appears from the stat-line that he'd had a really strong season in 1976-77 for Pittsburgh, so maybe he did have it in him.]
Well, it's obvious from a quick look at these high(low?)lights that the Canucks' players are just standing around, barely moving and not even trying to play defence. I like how when Gainey scores, he's like, "Meh... this is easy", and casually skates back to the bench.
The original Smythe Division, before it became the best division of its era. It was a mish-mash of jumbled up geography before it was realigned into its more famous version- Western Canada and the LA Kings.
Smythe 1.0 had some weak first-place teams outside of its last division winner of that era, the surprising 1981 Blues.
You think the Norris of the 80s were bad? Look at the records of the handful of Smythe 'champs' from 1975-1980
