From The Archive: 20 Incredible Bruins Moments

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20 Incredible Bruins Moments - Nov 13, 2023 - By Ken Campbell

As a kid who was indoctrinated into Habs Nation long before people started referring to fan bases as (insert team nickname here) Nations, I had always hated the Boston Bruins. Respected them, but hated them. They always scared me, even with the Montreal Canadiens regularly taking them to the woodshed in the playoffs.

Over the years, the fandom has waned, and the grudging respect has turned into admiration. How can you not appreciate the likes of Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron? How can you not give props to an organization that has been so good for so long? The Bruins may have only six Stanley Cups to their credit, but as they enter their 100th season in the NHL, the league’s first U.S.-based team has been at times bad and irrelevant, feared and talented, competitive and dynamic. And they’ve had some of the most exciting and skilled players in the history of the game.

As the Bruins celebrate their centennial, it’s a good time to take stock of the most incredible moments in franchise history. Here are 20 of the most prominent ones – lots good, some bad and a few ugly.

1. THE GOAL. ENOUGH SAID

MAY 10, 1970

WHEN THE BRUINS REACHED the final in 1970, it had been 12 years since they played for the Stanley Cup and an excruciating 29 years without a title. Even though the result was essentially a fait accompli, since the Bruins were facing the third-year St. Louis Blues, it was only fitting that the last game of the four-game sweep was won in dramatic fashion and was ended by the greatest player ever to wear a Bruins uniform. The Blues, after being swept by the Canadiens in both the 1968 and ’69 finals, were once again in over their head versus the powerful Bruins. “I thought they should have won three, maybe even four Cups in a row,” said Scotty Bowman, the Blues coach at the time. “We made the final three years in a row, and they were the toughest team we faced. They were a powerhouse.”

Early in overtime of Game 4, Larry Keenan of the Blues tried to chip the puck up the boards from deep in his zone, but the clear was intercepted by Bobby Orr, who passed it behind the net to Derek Sanderson, then cut to the net. Sanderson returned the pass, and Orr scored just before being tripped by Noel Picard. The mid-air goal celebration was captured by Boston Record-American photographer Ray Lussier and is one of the most iconic sports photos of all-time.

“That was Bobby Orr right in his prime,” Bowman said. “We even had Jimmy Roberts shadowing him for a while. A defenseman. But we stopped because it didn’t work.”

2. HORTON SCORES A GOAL

APRIL 27, 2011

REMEMBER WHAT WE WERE saying before about the Bruins’ playoff futility against the Canadiens? Well, they managed to even that out in the 1990s and were the better of the two teams in the early 2000s. But the Bruins found themselves in a life-and-death struggle against their nemesis in the first round of the 2011 playoffs.

A year after blowing a 3-0 series lead in Round 1 against the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, the Bruins lost the first two games of their 2011 Round 1 series to Montreal. But they fought back with three straight wins before Montreal forced a winner-take-all contest with a Game 6 victory on home ice. Game 7 was tied 3-3 going into overtime after P.K. Subban scored to tie it with just under two minutes remaining. But Nathan Horton channelled his inner Mel Hill (more on him later) and scored his second overtime goal of the series 5:43 into OT to seal the victory.

The Bruins went on to win their first Stanley Cup in 39 years, with their wins over Tampa Bay in the Eastern Conference final and Vancouver in the Cup final both coming in seven games.

3. DIT MOVES TO DEFENSE

NOVEMBER 6, 1937

FOR THE FIRST 10 years of his career, Dit Clapper was one of the NHL’s premier right wingers, starring on ‘The Dynamite Line’ along with Cooney Weiland and Dutch Gainor. Clapper, who moved up from defense after his contract was purchased from the Boston Tigers, helped the Bruins to the Stanley Cup in 1929 and finished second in the league to Weiland in goals with 41 in 1929-30.

In 1937, Clapper moved to defense, where he forged his Hall of Fame credentials and led the Bruins to two more Cups. Paired with Eddie Shore, Clapper was a first-team all-star three times on defense, becoming the first NHL player to be an all-star both at forward and defense. He was ranked the No. 11 defenseman of all-time by The Hockey News in 2020. With three Stanley Cups as a Bruin, Clapper has won more titles than any other player in a Bruins uniform.

4. MR. ZERO TAKES OVER

DECEMBER 1, 1938

TURNS OUT HARRY SINDEN wasn’t the only GM of the Bruins to have the courage to trade a franchise icon. Despite the fact Tiny Thompson was coming off a Vezina Trophy-winning season, the fourth of his career with the Bruins, GM Art Ross traded him to Detroit and called up Frank Brimsek for good. In short order, Brimsek went on a heater, posting six shutouts in seven games and breaking the league’s record for consecutive minutes without allowing a goal. He won over Bruins fans and earned the nickname ‘Mr. Zero.’ Brimsek won 33 games that season, was named rookie of the year and led Boston to the Cup.

5. WILLIE O’REE MAKES HISTORY

JANUARY 18, 1958

MORE THAN 65 YEARS after he became the first Black player in history to appear in an NHL game, the honors continue to be bestowed on Willie O’Ree. After being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, having his No. 22 retired by the Bruins and receiving a Congressional Gold Medal, O’Ree now has his face on a stamp in Canada. The accolades were well-earned by the man who became known as the ‘Jackie Robinson of hockey.’ Unlike baseball, there was no color barrier in the NHL, at least not an official one, but that doesn’t mean O’Ree didn’t face numerous obstacles in his pursuit of an NHL career.

6. THE ESPOSITO TRADE, PART I

MAY 15, 1967

WITH THE LEAGUE ON the verge of doubling in size, the Bruins were coming off their eighth straight season of missing the playoffs (remember, four of six teams made the post-season then), six of which they finished dead-last. Even with Orr finishing his rookie season with the Calder Trophy, the Bruins were still the NHL’s doormat.

All that changed when GM Milt Schmidt made a deal with Chicago that will go down as one of the most lopsided in NHL history, sending rugged defenseman Gilles Marotte, winger Pit Martin and goalie Jack Norris to the Black Hawks in exchange for Phil Esposito and wingers Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield.

Esposito was a burgeoning impact player, but he was seen as something of a playoff dud. He took enormous heat for his performance in the Hawks’ Round 1 elimination to a Toronto Maple Leafs team that finished 19 points behind Chicago in the regular season, and he had only four goals in 29 post-season games. In Boston, Esposito became one of the greatest scorers the game has ever known, while Hodge also had

7. SINDEN GIVES CANUCKS THE (CAM) SHAFT

JUNE 6, 1986

NINETEEN YEARS AFTER TRADING for Esposito, the Bruins took a chance on another young underachiever when they acquired 21-year-old Cam Neely plus a first-round pick in the 1987 draft (which they used to choose Glen Wesley) in exchange for 25-year-old Barry Pederson. When Sinden made the deal, he was trading a two-time 100-point man for a rugged kid who had scored 14 goals the previous year. “I remember they needed somebody to score goals, and we needed somebody to bang bodies,” Sinden recalled. “Sometimes, you just get lucky.”

The Bruins got more than lucky with the man who became synonymous with Boston hockey and is now the team president. Neely was everything the Canucks thought they were getting when they drafted him ninth overall in 1983 and then some. Neely posted three 50-goal seasons, including 1993-94 when he hit the mark in just 49 games, and he led the Bruins to two Cup finals. After seven solid seasons with the Bruins, Wesley was dealt to the Hartford Whalers for first-round picks in 1995, ’96 and ’97, the last of which was used to take Sergei Samsonov, who won the Calder Trophy in 1997-98.

8. THE ESPOSITO TRADE, PART II

NOVEMBER 7, 1975

OF ALL THE BRILLIANT trades Sinden made over the years, none was riskier than when he decided early in 1975-76 to ship franchise icon Esposito, who was coming off his fifth straight 100-point season, along with defenseman Carol Vadnais, to the New York Rangers for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi. But the deal not only revived the careers of Park and Ratelle and cemented their Hall of Fame credentials, it kept the Bruins as a perennial contender for another eight years.

But, man, did the Bruins take some heat in the early days after the deal was done. Think about this for a minute. Esposito was coming off a 61-goal season in 1974-75, the sixth consecutive season he had led the league in goals. Nobody else, not even Wayne Gretzky or Alex Ovechkin, has led the league in goals six straight seasons. Esposito was shocked and devastated by the deal. Even though Esposito had six goals and 16 points in 12 games prior to the trade, Sinden said, “He wasn’t playing well and we had to do something.”

As the Bruins’ media-relations guy, Nate Greenberg was dispatched to pick up Park at the airport after the deal, and he thought it would be a good idea to stop in at the WBZ-AM radio station to do an hour of a sports talk show. As he and Park were sitting in the waiting room preparing for him to go on the air, they could hear the radio broadcast, and to say the callers were not kind to Park would be an understatement. “People were calling (Park) every name in the book,” Greenberg said. “They emasculated him. People were saying, ‘Everybody’s going to hate that fat f---.’ They were killing him. But what he didn’t know at the time was that there was a seven-second delay, so all the swears were edited out.”

9. CLOSING TIME ON CAUSEWAY

SEPTEMBER 26, 1995

FOR 67 YEARS – SOME of them good, some of them bad, all of them eventful – the Bruins called the old Boston Garden their home. Unfortunately, so did a number of rats. The final event, a pre-season game between the Bruins and the Canadiens, was preceded by a closing ceremony, the pinnacle of which occurred when Bruins captain Ray Bourque took Normand Leveille for a last skate, followed by Orr pushing Leveille’s wheelchair around the ice. Grown men in the stands were weeping.

The Canadiens get a lot of deserved credit for pulling off these sorts of events, but the Bruins tugged at the heartstrings in a big way with this one. The vision of Leveille, holding his cane supported by Bourque and skating around the ice, is one that will forever endure. Leveille was the Bruins’ first-round pick in 1981, and with nine points in the first nine games of his second NHL season, he suffered a brain aneurysm in a game in Vancouver that left him paralyzed. Leveille endured seven hours of surgery and was in a coma for three weeks. The malady robbed Leveille of an NHL career and the Bruins of a player Sinden was convinced would have been a star. “We thought we had a bona fide Hall of Fame player,” Sinden said. “He had a terrific shot, and he could really fake his shot then shoot later. He wasn’t that big, but he was a tough little guy.”

10. ‘KRAUT LINE’ GOES TO WAR

FEBRUARY 10, 1942

THE TRIO OF SCHMIDT between Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer grew up giving goalies nightmares in Kitchener, Ont., then brought their act to Boston, where they won Cups in 1939 and ’41 and finished 1-2-3 in NHL scoring in 1939-40. They enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force for the Second World War, but not before combining for 11 points in the Bruins’ 8-1 win over Montreal at the Boston Garden late in 1941-42.

But it was what happened after the game that made it so memorable. Despite being embarrassed by their rivals, the Canadiens carried Schmidt, Dumart and Bauer off the ice on their shoulders. The trio missed the next three years in service to their country, then returned to the Bruins, with Schmidt winning the Hart Trophy in 1950-51.

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11. RUNNING UP THAT HILL

APRIL 2, 1939

IN THE 107-YEAR HISTORY of the NHL, only once has a player scored three overtime goals in one playoff series. That player was a journeyman by the name of Mel Hill, who earned the nickname ‘Sudden Death’ for his exploits against the Rangers in the second round of the 1939 playoffs.

Hill began his magic by scoring with 35 seconds left in the third overtime of Game 1, then followed up with another OT goal two nights later. After taking a 3-0 stranglehold on the series, the Bruins dropped the next three games and were again in triple overtime in Game 7 when Hill scored exactly eight minutes in. The Bruins went on to win the Cup in five games over Toronto, with Hill opening the scoring in the clinching game.

12. BOURQUE TO ESPOSITO

DECEMBER 3, 1987

WHEN BOURQUE BROKE IN with the Bruins in 1979, he didn’t become the first player to wear a number of a former superstar – Dickie Moore and Yvan Cournoyer (No. 12), Elmer Lach and Henri Richard (No. 16) and ‘Boom Boom’ Geoffrion and Guy Lapointe (No. 5) all wore the same number with the Canadiens. But when Bruins decided to retire the No. 7, they were faced with a dilemma. Esposito had worn the number while smashing the record book, and, since wearing numbers higher than 35 was not a thing at the time, Bourque was wearing the same number while becoming an all-time great himself. So Sinden came up with an idea. “I was driving back from one of our minor-league games in Springfield, wondering what to do about the number,” Sinden said. “And it came to mind. I said, ‘I think I know what we can do.’ It wasn’t a long-term thing that was thought out by some committee. It just happened in the car one night.”

And it resulted in one of the game’s most touching moments. During the ceremony, Bourque skated to Esposito, passed him a No. 7 sweater, then removed his own sweater to reveal No. 77, which he wore for the rest of that season and 12 more until he was traded. Bourque’s No. 77 was retired by the Bruins in 2001. “What this young man did tonight,” said Esposito of Bourque, “is something that I’ll never, ever, ever forget, no matter what else happens in my life.”

13. DRYDEN FOR SOME GUY NAMED GUY

JUNE 11, 1964

WHEN BRUINS GM SCHMIDT drafted an unknown goalie by the name of Ken Dryden with the 14th overall pick in 1964, then 17 days later flipped him to the Montreal Canadiens for Guy Allen and Paul Reid, little did he know he was setting into motion a series of events that would see their rival acquire one of the biggest Bruin killers.

There are many versions of the events, including that the Bruins traded Dryden and Alex Campbell to the Canadiens because they learned after choosing Dryden that he intended to go to Cornell. But that’s impossible, since Dryden didn’t find out he had even been drafted by the Bruins until well into his NHL career, when Canadiens executive Ron Caron mentioned it in passing. According to Dryden, shortly after the draft, his Jr. B coach called him to say he had been taken by Montreal because it was the Canadiens who called the coach to inform him.

We all know how things turned out for Dryden and the Bruins, but life unfolded pretty nicely for Allen as well. He played a couple of years in the minors, then returned to his hometown of Timmins, Ont., where he had a long career in policing, then worked for the Ontario attorney general’s office. For his part, Allen harbors zero bitterness. And when Dryden, who later went into federal politics, was on business in Timmins in 2008, he reached out and asked Allen to meet him at the airport. Allen wasn’t going to go, but his wife convinced him to, and the two principals in the deal met for the first time. When Dryden asked Allen if there was anything he could do for him, Allen had one simple request. He asked Dryden to sign a picture of the two of them together with the inscription, “Guy, thanks for putting me into the Hall of Fame.”

“I never thought I’d get it,” Allen said. “But a couple of months later, it came. Isn’t that awesome? I put it in a frame, and now I’m glad I went out to meet him.”

14. THESE BOOTS WEREMADE FOR WHACKING

DECEMBER 23, 1979

IF IT HAPPENED TODAY, there probably isn’t a number high enough to count the games Terry O’Reilly, Mike Milbury and the rest would be suspended for their actions on Dec. 23, 1979, the night the Bruins went into the stands at Madison Square Garden and Milbury pummelled a Rangers fan with the guy’s own shoe. O’Reilly was suspended eight games, Milbury and Peter McNab six each. But, according to the summary, the only penalty in the entire debacle went to Dave Maloney of the Rangers, who earned a game misconduct but didn’t sit a minute because the game had already ended with the Bruins winning 4-3.

It all went down shortly after Esposito smashed his stick in frustration after being stopped on a breakaway at the buzzer that would have tied the game. And it was a garden-variety scrum until a Rangers fan reached over the glass during an altercation between O’Reilly and Frank ‘Seldom’ Beaton of the Rangers.

After the affair, they managed to get the Bruins’ bus into the arena, and Dennis Ryan, a former assistant chief with the NYPD who was the Rangers’ security guy, arranged for the Bruins to have six motorcycle cops get the bus to the Lincoln Tunnel.

“We’re backing the bus out of the 33rd Street entrance, and people are rocking the bus and throwing stuff at it,” Greenberg said. “They took us to the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, and I was standing in the well of the bus. I said to the six cops, ‘Hey, thanks very much, we appreciate it.’ Five of them waved back, and the cop that was closest to me gave me the finger.”

15. THE COMEBACK

MAY 13, 2013

WITH JUST OVER 10 minutes left in Game 7 of their first-round showdown against Toronto, the Bruins found themselves trailing 4-1. Then Horton scored. Then Tuukka Rask stopped Matt Frattin on a clear breakaway with just under four minutes left. Then Milan Lucic scored. Bergeron tied it 31 seconds later with less than a minute remaining, then capped one of the greatest playoff comebacks in NHL history by scoring at the 6:05 mark of overtime. The Bruins advanced to the final before losing to Chicago, but the comeback personified ‘Boston Strong’ and galvanized a city that had been rocked by a bombing at the Boston Marathon in which three people were killed and hundreds injured less than a month before.

16. DOWN GOES BOUCHARD!

MAY 21, 1978

IN THE FOUR-PLUS DECADES from 1945-46 through 1986-87, the Bruins faced the Canadiens in the playoffs 18 times and lost 18 times. Yikes. But even though the B’s didn’t beat the Habs in the 1978 final, they won one battle in one of the bloodiest, most lopsided fights in history.

There was nothing to suggest that the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Stan Jonathan would be anything but fodder for the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Pierre Bouchard when the two of them squared off in Game 4 of that year’s final. But Jonathan started with a dizzying flurry of right hands, then switched to his left and cut Bouchard over the eye, which caused him to bleed profusely. By the time Bouchard had been pulled from the ice, both he and linesman John D’Amico were covered in blood. “They were a tough team,” said Bowman, the former Canadiens coach. “A lot tougher than we were. They had Jonathan, O’Reilly, Milbury and (John) Wensink. The problem for Bouchard was that he cut his eye and couldn’t see anything.”

The Bruins won that game in overtime to tie the series 2-2 and looked to have momentum, but the Canadiens took the next two games to win their third of four straight Stanley Cups. But Bruins fans still have fond memories of that fight. “Aside from goals, it’s probably the thing that is replayed the most at Bruins games,” Greenberg said.

17. SHORE ENDS ACE’S CAREER

DECEMBER 12, 1933

ANY DISCUSSION OF THE greatest defensemen in Bruins and NHL history has to include Shore, along with Orr and Bourque. But not only was Shore a great player, he had a mean streak that neither Orr (who was really, really tough) nor Bourque could approach. He was, to be blunt, a nasty piece of work. And in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, it almost killed Ace Bailey. Shore, reacting to what he thought was a dirty hit by King Clancy, confused Bailey with Clancy and slammed Bailey from behind into the boards. Bailey suffered a fractured skull, went into convulsions on the ice and spent 10 days in a coma. Shore was suspended 16 games, which was one-third of the regular season at the time. The league held an Ace Bailey Benefit Game the next season, which was the precursor to the NHL All-Star Game.

18. TOO MANY MEN. ENOUGH SAID

MAY 10, 1979

AFTER SO MANY AGONIZING defeats, the Bruins finally had them. This was it. The curse of the Canadiens was about to be lifted, and the Bruins would go on to win the Cup after dispatching the New York Rangers in the final. After all, this series was the final. With the Bruins leading 4-3 late in the third period, Guy Lafleur went to the Canadiens’ bench, and so did Don Marcotte, who was his shadow through the series. And he had done what people thought was an admirable job. After all, Lafleur had only five even-strength goals in the first six games of the series.

As quickly as Lafleur got off the ice, he jumped back on. So did Marcotte, which left the Bruins with too many men, because one player – believed to be Jonathan, who had a hat trick in Game 6 – didn’t come off the ice. The Bruins were called for too many men on the ice. Then, with 1:14 left, Lafleur “coming out rather gingerly down the right side,” in the words of play-by-play man Danny Gallivan, took a drop pass from Jacques Lemaire and scored the tying goal before Yvon Lambert scored in overtime. “In retrospect, you have to control yourself,” Sinden said, “and we weren’t able to do that.”

19. ORR’S HOUSE GETS STUCCOED

MARCH 31, 1961

WHEN THE BRUINS BRASS showed up in Gananoque, Ont., for a bantam playoff game in 1961 as a side trip to watch the junior playoffs in nearby Kingston, they were there to watch Doug Higgins and Rick Eaton, stars of the Gananoque team. But it wasn’t long before a wispy, 112-pound kid from Parry Sound had them all entranced. Scout Wren Blair, a hockey lifer who later became GM of the Minnesota North Stars, spent a year chasing and wooing Orr. A year later, Orr signed with the Bruins and was dispatched to the Oshawa Generals. As part of the deal, Orr received $10,000, his parents received new cars and the B’s paid to have the family home in Parry Sound stuccoed.

20. NEAR-TRAGIC STICK FIGHT

SEPTEMBER 21, 1969

A PRE-SEASON GAME IN Ottawa turned ugly and controversial when Bruins defenseman Ted Green and Blues winger Wayne Maki got involved in a stick-swinging duel that went horribly wrong when Maki struck Green in the right temple.

It didn’t look all that serious at first, but it wasn’t long before Sinden, who was behind the B’s bench, realized something was very wrong. “(Maki) didn’t really mean to hit (Green) where he did,” he said. “It didn’t look serious, but then he stumbled when he got up, and that frightened me. By the time we got him to the hospital, we were worried sick.”

Incredibly, the teams played the rest of the game after the incident. For the next couple of hours, Green fought for his life, then underwent an operation to have a metal plate inserted into his skull. Both Green and Maki were charged with assault but were acquitted.

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Photo Credit: © Jerome Miron-Imagn Images