1960-61 NHL Replay - week ending 19 November 1960

It appears as if the cream has started to rise to the top as the season passes its quarter-pole, with the League leaders going on the road and taking care of business convincingly, but Toronto hanging tight near the top with a thrilling win . . .

13 November 1960 - Toronto (5) at Boston (3)

The Leafs put an end to Boston's brief run of impressive play at home, scoring twice in each of the first two periods to build an insurmountable 4-1 lead. George Armstrong on Bob Nevin lit the lamp within thirty seconds of each other five minutes into the game and, although Leo Boivin cut the TOR lead in half with a drive through traffic at 9:24, there would be no Bruin revival on this night. Frank Mahovlich scored ninety seconds into the second period, Dick Duff made it 4-1 with a little over a minute left in that frame and Johnny Bower and the Leafs coasted through a little bit of a Boston push midway through the final period when Don McKenney scored twice on the same shift midway. George Armstrong had a goal and an assist on six shots, while Fern Flaman had two hits and three blocked shots for Boston. [box] [stats]

George Armstrong scored the opening goal for Toronto

13 November 1960 - Detroit (2) at Chicago (2)

Warren Godfrey scored with eight minutes to go to earn the Red Wings a point from a surprisingly sedate affair at the Stadium. The Hawks seemed to have left their usual aggressive, physical style on the baggage carousel at Midway Airport and the first period saw very little in the way of attacking play, although each club managed to score once - Ron Murphy got the Hawks off to a fast start at 2:20, but Marcel Pronovost evened things up at 18:31. The pace picked up considerably in the second period, with more than twice as many shots finding their way through to the goaltenders, but Terry Sawchuk and Glenn Hall were able to steer all of those aside so that the game entered the final twenty minutes still tied at one goal apiece. After Bobby Hull whipped one home in the second minute of the period to put Chicago in front again, the game suddenly exploded in a shower of whistles and gloves hitting the ice - Reggie Fleming took issue with Pete Goegan's stick to the face and, when the Wings defenseman was whistled for only a minor infraction, Fleming took his case to the referee with a little too much physicality. His bump of the zebra got him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a misconduct, and he and Goegan then decided to cap things off with a few swings in the general vicinity of each other's heads as the benches emptied. Once the officials had cleared the ice of men and equipment, 24 minutes of penalties had been booked in a game that had seen only four handed out in the previous 43 minutes. Midway through the period, Detroit got control in the Chicago end and Godfrey took a Brian Smith pass at the top of the face-off circle and struck the puck over Hall's glove to tie the game. Sawchuk finished with 34 saves. [box] [stats]

Terry Sawchuk makes one of his 34 saves to preserve a tie

13 November 1960 - Montréal (8) at New York (2)

In an utterly merciless performance in front of a stunned crowd at Madison Square Garden, the Canadiens scored at will while holding the Rangers to just 22 shots. While Montréal dominated the first period with fourteen of the nineteen shots on goal, they only led by 2-0 on goals by Jean Beliveau and Marcel Bonin (PPG) at the first intermission and New York could have been forgiven for holding out some hope. They had taken the Canadiens' best punch and were still in the game . . . except that they hadn't, and they weren't. Camille Henry scored at 7:06 of the second to fuel the MSG hopes, but then the visitors went on a crushing spree in the last ten minutes of the period. Jean-Guy Talbot scored from the back line at 10:35 then, as Doug Harvey sat in the box for unsportsmanlike conduct three minutes later, Dickie Moore scored a short-handed goal that made the score 5-1 and put the game away for all practical purposes. In the third Les Habitants scored just for the fun of it, racking up sixteen shots on Gump Worsley and getting markers from Bill Hicke, Bobby Rousseau and Bernie Geoffrion as they finished off the rout. Henri Richard has a buy night with three assists, six shots on goal and fifteen PIMs while Camille "The Eel" Henry was the sole bright spot for New York with both of the home team's goals. [box] [stats]

Bill Hicke (two goals, assist) waits for Jean Beliveau to collect a loose puck

15 November 1960 - Chicago (5) at Detroit (0)

The Black Hawks weathered a quick Red Wing start and then scored a trio of second-period goals to take control of a game which Glenn Hall would dominate between the pipes. Detroit, after getting a point out of the road half of the home-and-home two days ago, came out trying to cash in their home ice advantage right away; they held Chicago to only four shots in the first twenty minutes, but none of their own twelve pucks could get behind Hall in a scoreless period. That drive seemed to leave the Wings completely in the dressing room between periods, as it was the Hawks who had tone one-way traffic in the second . . . but they cashed in. A Howie Glover penalty opened the door for Kenny Wharram's power-play goal at 8:16, and then Murray Balfour and Eric Nesterenko scored in two-and-a-half-minute stretch late in the period for a 3-0 lead that looked fairly safe in front of a sharp Hall. But you could not fault Detroit's effort in the final period - they got twenty shots at the Hawks' goalie but he saw every single one of them in time, and Balfour and Bobby Hull added goals at the other end to make the final score a bit flattering to Chicago in the end. The Wings had three different players amass five (empty) shots at goal while Balfour and Hull had three points each to support the winning cause. [box] [stats]

Murray Balfour scored twice and assisted on a third goal in Chicago's win at Detroit

16 November 1960 - Boston (3) at New York (1)

Third period goals by Bronco Horvath and Johnny Bucyk, and tidy goaltending by Don Simmons, proved to be the difference in pushing Boston to its first road win of the season in nine tries. The Bruins, whose only previous points away from home come in draws at Montréal and Detroit in October and who had lost their previous three road tilts by a combined score of 17-6, got on top quickly when Jim Bartlett beat Gump Worsley at 3:14 of a quiet opening period. The Rangers, shocked to attention, sprung to life in the second but the Bs skated with them stride-for-stride as the tempo increased. Simmons knocked away all twelve NY shots and the visitors still held a 1-0 lead with twenty minutes to play. A tense final period went past the ten-minute mark with no further scoring, and a double minor on Doug Mohns at 12:16 piled the pressure on Boston while giving the Rangers a big chance. But, just eighteen seconds into the NYR power-play, Horvath got behind his man to tap in a loose puck from Leo Boivin's shot and Boston was only a handful of minutes away from the elusive road victory. Brian Cullen did get one for New York before the penalties to Mohns expired, and the pressure grew once again, but Bucyk (five shots on goals) slid one into an empty net with three seconds on the clock and the job was done for the Bruins. Simmons finished with thirty saves, five on Cullen and four against Andy Hebenton. [box] [stats]

Bronco Horvath's third-period goal was the key strike for Boston

16 November 1960 - Detroit (2) at Toronto (0)

Hank Bassen stood tall in the Red Wing net and the Wings' first line provided all the scoring support that was necessary in a low-scoring triumph in Toronto. A frenetic opening twenty minutes saw nearly thirty shots fired, but only one found the back of the net - a roughing call on Carl Brewer only twenty-eight seconds after the puck was dropped led to an Alex Delvecchio power play goal at 1:01 - and the goals at both ends seemed to have lids on them as the game wore on with no further scoring. It was still a 1-0 affair with ten minutes left in the game but, as the pace had slowed somewhat, so had Detroit gradually begun to gain the upper hand. They were controlling the puck in the third period when Delvecchio found Norm Ullman in the slot and he beat Johnny Bower for a 2-0 Detroit lead and Bassen did the rest. Thirty-one saves on the night and a shutout win for the Albertan shot-stopper, and Delvecchio, Ullman and Howe took 17 of Detroit's 35 shots between them. [box] [stats]

Alex Delvecchio scored the game-winner

17 November 1960 - Boston (2) at Chicago (3)

Bobby Hull's shot from the left dot beat Don Simmons with just over three minutes left in the game to give the Black Hawks the late victory in a game they struggled to control at home. The teams had traded scores twice in the first two evenly-player periods, Moose Vasko and Bronco Horvath scoring even-strength goals in the first and Bill Hay and Horvath tallying with the man advantage in the second. But the third period was controlled by the Black Hawks on home ice, as they outshot the Bruins by a 3:1 margin, however the go-ahead goal would not come as Simmons held down the fort. There were three power-play opportunities in the final period, all of which finished scoreless, but one minute after Boston had killed the last of these they perhaps relaxed for an instant; Hull zipped the puck past Simmons on a one-timer off a pass from Pierre Pilote, and the Bruins had no response. [box] [stats]

Bobby Hull's goals with three minutes to go won it for Chicago

19 November 1960 - Detroit (4) at Boston (2)

The Bruins could not find a way to hold down Detroit's top line, and the Boston debut of 22-year-old goaltender Bruce Gamble ended in defeat after third-period goals by Alex Delvecchio and Norm Ullman. Their line mate, Gordie Howe, started the scoring at 12:20 of the first despite the Wings only managing to test Gamble seven times, and the team swapped second-period scores on Aut Erickson's shot from the point and Delvecchio's finish of a nice three-man play in the Boston zone. It was anyone's game in the third, and the Bs had had slightly more of the possession in the first forty minutes, but the stars would shine for Detroit in the last twenty. After ten minutes that largely went Detroit's way, Delvecchio potted his second after being sprung clear at center ice by Pete Goegan and Ullman followed up a minute later to make it 4-1 and put the game out of the Bruins' reach. Jim Bartlett did get a second goal for the home team with seven minutes left, but Boston did not have the firepower to climb back into the contest. Howe and Delvecchio had three points each, Hank Bassen made 32 saves and Fern Flaman had two assists, two blocked shots and a hit for Boston. [box] [stats]

Gordie Howe opened the scoring for Detroit, and added two assists

19 November 1960 - Montréal (6) at Toronto (7)

Dave Keon's goal with ninety seconds left ended a thirteen-goal slugfest and gave the Leafs an exhilarating and important win over their Canadian rivals. The teams traded blows in the opening period to a 2-2 deadlock, but it appeared that the Canadiens had taken control of the game early in the second; Dickie Moore scored on the power play at 3:29 while Carl Brewer served an interference call, and Jean Beliveau made it 4-2 three minutes later. But Toronto wasn't going to roll over - their top unit got those two goals back on the same shift just two minutes later, Red Kelly and Bob Nevin doing the honors, and Ron Stewart put the Maple Leafs ahead two minutes after that when he cleaned up the rebound of a Bob Baun shot. That was nine goals in forty minutes, but the scoring wasn't nearly done. Kelly scored again at 6:48 of the third to give TOR a two-goal cushion, but this time it was Montréal's turn to rally; Moore and Beliveau both bagged their braces in a three-minute stretch to tie the game at six with six minutes left on the clock. The Leafs were creating less and less as the game wore on, but they had one more moment in them as Keon took a feed from Bob Nevin, after Eddie Shack had won a loose puck along the boards at center ice, and flipped the disc over Jacques Plante's shoulder for the goal that finally decided the game. Among the players stuff their stat sheets on the evening were Bernie Geoffrion (six SOG) and Nevin with four points apiece. [box] [stats]

Dave Keon scored the game-winner in a high-scoring affair

Standings as of 19 November 1960

Team	GP	W	L	T	PTS	Pct	GF	GA
Montreal Canadiens	19	11	4	4	26	0.684	84	57
Toronto Maple Leafs	19	12	7	0	24	0.632	68	58
Chicago Black Hawks	19	8	8	3	19	0.500	54	46
Detroit Red Wings	20	8	10	2	18	0.450	45	48
New York Rangers	18	6	10	2	14	0.389	52	72
Boston Bruins	19	5	11	3	13	0.342	44	66

League Leaders

Goals	Team	G
Moore, Dickie	Montreal	17
Beliveau, Jean	Montreal	16
Geoffrion, Bernie	Montreal	13
Keon, Dave	Toronto	11
Three tied with		9

Assists	Team	A
Beliveau, Jean	Montreal	22
Geoffrion, Bernie	Montreal	22
Harvey, Doug	Montreal	19
Moore, Dickie	Montreal	18
Delvecchio, Alex	Detroit	15

Points	Team	PTS
Beliveau, Jean	Montreal	38
Geoffrion, Bernie	Montreal	35
Moore, Dickie	Montreal	35
Delvecchio, Alex	Detroit	24
Nevin, Bob	Toronto	21
Ullman, Norm	Detroit	21

Penalty Minutes	Team	PIM
Fleming, Reggie	Chicago	65
Richard, Henri	Montreal	61
Talbot, Jean-Guy	Montreal	41
Balfour, Murray	Chicago	35
Armstrong, Bob	Boston	34
Hillman, Larry	Toronto	34

Plus/Minus	Team	+/-
Beliveau, Jean	Montreal	31
Geoffrion, Bernie	Montreal	26
Langlois, Albert	Montreal	24
Moore, Dickie	Montreal	24
Johnson, Tom	Montreal	20

Goals-Against Average	Team	GAA
Sawchuk, Terry	Detroit	2.28
Hall, Glenn	Chicago	2.39
Bassen, Hank	Detroit	2.45
Plante, Jacques	Montreal	3.00
Bower, Johnny	Toronto	3.06

Save Percentage	Team	PCT
Bassen, Hank	Detroit	0.919
Sawchuk, Terry	Detroit	0.919
Hall, Glenn	Chicago	0.917
Plante, Jacques	Montreal	0.899
Worsley, Gump	New York	0.898

(Boxscores and stats from the BlueLynx hockey spreadsheet.)