Nerowoy nora tolad
Registered User
So the story as we all know it has Don Cherry taking over the head coaching position with the Boston Bruins for the start of the 1974-75 season and coaching them until the end of the 1979 playoffs when the infamous game 7 loss in Montreal happened. During this period the Bruins were one of the better teams in the league, posting regular season numbers that would have made them absolute locks to win the cup in the current era, but by the standards of the late 70s, they were probably somewhere between good and great; much better than the rest of the pack in the NHL, on par with teams like the Sabres, Flyers and growing Islanders, and a definite cut below the Canadiens, who were ahead of the rest of the NHL to a degree never seen before or since.
In simplest terms, I think you could summarize what happened in 1979 as a very good team (the Bruins) facing an even better team (the Canadiens) that played a bit below what it was capable of. That combined with a hot goaltender for Boston put the teams on roughly even footing up to game 7 where Cherry made a fatal mistake while protecting the lead. While Id argue that blame for the too many men penalty should end up on Cherry, its a pretty forgivable mistake given that it was caused by using a shadow (Marcotte IIRC?) on Lafleur, who jumped back onto the ice when Lafleur came back to the bench and Bowman sent him right back out on the next shift (Lafleur was apparently a physical freak in terms of fitness as shown by heart rate tests and similar things, so Bowman sometimes double and triple shifted Lafleur when he wanted an advantage. Not many players in the world are able to do that)
In the offseason Cherry was fired pretty quickly by Sinden, who apparently didnt really like Grapes, and vice versa. Sinden goes and hires Fred Creighton from the Flames for 79-80. As far as I can tell, Creighton does a reasonably good job, but Sinden takes some sort of issue with him, fires him just before the playoffs and steps in himself to coach the Bruins into the 80 playoffs.
In the 80 playoffs the Bruins have a bit of a hiccup against the Pens in the preliminary round but manage to right the ship and move on to face the Islanders. And this is where it gets interesting.
According to the Islanders players, the New York-Boston series in 1980 was pivotal from a team standpoint, as the narrative (as they tell it anyways) had their players stepping up physically and fighting the Bruins. Im not sure Ive ever heard the Bruins side of the story, but given that the Isles won, the implication was that the Bruins were beaten at their own game, outfought, outhit, outgrit, etc.
One thing Ive never heard discussed before is whether Cherry being kept on for the 1980 season with the Bruins changes anything and maybe gets his team to the finals in the Islanders place. If the Bruins win that series, their path to the finals would have been Buffalo -> Philly, both of which are very winnable matchups, although the Bruins odds against the Flyers might have been a bit dicey given how well the Flyers had played that year. What do you think, does one more year of Cherry behind the bench (coaching his team that had been pretty much built the way he wanted it), get the Bruins over the hurdle and to the Cup?
In simplest terms, I think you could summarize what happened in 1979 as a very good team (the Bruins) facing an even better team (the Canadiens) that played a bit below what it was capable of. That combined with a hot goaltender for Boston put the teams on roughly even footing up to game 7 where Cherry made a fatal mistake while protecting the lead. While Id argue that blame for the too many men penalty should end up on Cherry, its a pretty forgivable mistake given that it was caused by using a shadow (Marcotte IIRC?) on Lafleur, who jumped back onto the ice when Lafleur came back to the bench and Bowman sent him right back out on the next shift (Lafleur was apparently a physical freak in terms of fitness as shown by heart rate tests and similar things, so Bowman sometimes double and triple shifted Lafleur when he wanted an advantage. Not many players in the world are able to do that)
In the offseason Cherry was fired pretty quickly by Sinden, who apparently didnt really like Grapes, and vice versa. Sinden goes and hires Fred Creighton from the Flames for 79-80. As far as I can tell, Creighton does a reasonably good job, but Sinden takes some sort of issue with him, fires him just before the playoffs and steps in himself to coach the Bruins into the 80 playoffs.
In the 80 playoffs the Bruins have a bit of a hiccup against the Pens in the preliminary round but manage to right the ship and move on to face the Islanders. And this is where it gets interesting.
According to the Islanders players, the New York-Boston series in 1980 was pivotal from a team standpoint, as the narrative (as they tell it anyways) had their players stepping up physically and fighting the Bruins. Im not sure Ive ever heard the Bruins side of the story, but given that the Isles won, the implication was that the Bruins were beaten at their own game, outfought, outhit, outgrit, etc.
One thing Ive never heard discussed before is whether Cherry being kept on for the 1980 season with the Bruins changes anything and maybe gets his team to the finals in the Islanders place. If the Bruins win that series, their path to the finals would have been Buffalo -> Philly, both of which are very winnable matchups, although the Bruins odds against the Flyers might have been a bit dicey given how well the Flyers had played that year. What do you think, does one more year of Cherry behind the bench (coaching his team that had been pretty much built the way he wanted it), get the Bruins over the hurdle and to the Cup?