On this date fifty years ago the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup after defeating the Sabers in six games. Deflated Buffalo fans looked on as “The Broad Street Bullies” took their 2nd victory lap with The Cup in as many years. The on ice celebration was short and sweet. It was a stark contrast to the previous year’s championship where pure pandemonium broke out in the Spectrum as the Flyers “won it all” on home ice.
A year later in Buffalo team captain Bobby Clarke waited for repeat playoff MVP Bernie Parent to join him before skating a single lap around “The Aud” with hockey’s holy grail. As the Flyers reached the tunnel Clarke hoisted The Cup over his head then quickly handed it off and ran up the ramp like he had just stolen the thing. Some “experts” would like you to believe that the Flyers did steal it.
The Flyers physically intimating style of play was surely a factor in their success but it was not the only thing this team had to offer. Not by a long shot.
“Of course the only way to prove to the people, I guess not to ourselves but to the people, that it wasn’t a fluke was to repeat the following year, and we did”. -Bernie Parent
Receipts
The NHL in the mid 1970’s was a tough place to play ice hockey. The Flyers didn’t invent the physical component of the game in that era, but they did master it. That being said, some still choose to look at the stats and focus solely on the penalty minutes. That perspective will not give you an accurate summation of how this team went on to win back to back Stanley Cups. Here’s a quick look at the 1974-75 Flyers.
During the regular season the Flyers finished 1st in the Patrick Division earning 113 points with a 51-18-11 record, losing just six games at home. The Rangers and Islanders were tied for 2nd with 88 points.
All Star center Bobby Clarke won his second Hart Memorial Trophy that season with 116 points and was a plus 79 on the season. (That is not a typo).
Fellow All Star Bernie Parent won his second Vesina Trophy with a league leading 44 wins. Parent posted a 2.04 GAA and .918 SV% along with 12 shutouts during the regular season. The Flyers allowed fewer goals against than any other team in the NHL that year. Parent went on to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs for the second straight year. (I guess it wasn’t a fluke). During the playoffs Bernie pulled his GAA down to 1.89 and posted a .924 SV% along with 4 shutouts.
During the 1974-75 season Rick MacLeish had 38 goals and 41 assists. Reggie Leach 45 goals 33 assists. Bill Barber 34 goals 37 assists. Ross Lonsberry had 24 goals 25 assists.
On defense Ed Van Impe was plus 39. Andre “The Moose” Dupont and Jimmy Watson were plus 41. Joe Watson and Tom Bladon were plus 42. This squad had a ton of talent and every member of the team had his role and played his part. You have to ignore a whole lot of achievements to write this team off as a “bunch of goons”.
The Road to The Cup 1975
Toronto
The Flyers swept the Leafs in their first round. Rick MacLeish scored a hattrick in game one. Parent posted back-to-back shutouts in games two and three. The Flyers made easy work of the Leafs and dispatched them in four straight after winning game four in overtime.
New York
Glenn “Chico” Resch and the Islanders proved to be a much tougher opponent for the Flyers. It took all seven games to finish the Islanders off before moving on to the final round.
Bernie Parent was injured by a shot to the knee during the warm-up before game one at the Spectrum. Wayne Stevenson was called on to start the series in the Flyers net. He posted a shutout and picked up an assist on the first Flyers goal. Stevenson won game two as well.
Parent returned to the net for game three, winning a goaltender’s battle against Resch 1-0. The Islanders refused to lay down until game seven when the Flyers spurred on by yet another Rick MacLeish hattrick were dominant all night long and earned their return trip to The Stanley Cup Final.
Buffalo
1975 marked the first time that two expansion teams would be playing for The Cup. The Sabres were a smooth skating high flying organization led by the French Connecection Line consisting of Gilbert Perreaut, Rick Martin, and Rene Robert. They had just powered through Guy Lefleur and the Montreal Canadiens in the semi-finals. The Habs and Sabres who ranked 1st and 2nd in “goals for” during the 74-75 regular season scored a combined 50 goals during that six game series.
The Flyers won the first two games of the championship series at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Parent held the high scoring Sabres to just one goal in each of the first two tilts. Game three moved to Buffalo where things got weird. First there was a live bat that was swatted out of mid air by Sabre Jimmy Lorenze. The recently deceased flittermouse was removed from the playing surface by Flyer Rick MacLeash, …still can’t figure out why he took his glove off to perform the task.
Then the fog started rolling in. The Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo was not exactly state of the art as far as climate control was concerned and could not properly facilitate 15,863 fans watching late Spring hockey games. The fog was rising up from the melting ice. It was intense and visibility was almost non existent. Buffalo won that mess of a match 5-4 in overtime. A less foggy game four ended in the Sabres favor as well. The series was tied at two before returning to Philly for a game five Flyers blowout that saw none other than Dave Shultz scoring a pair of goals.
“We didn’t have the best players, we had the best team”. Flyers head coach Fred Shero
May 27th 1975
A half a century ago today, game six took place in Buffalo. For the second time in two years Bernie Parent notched a shutout in the deciding game of the Stanley Cup Final. It would take only one goal to win The Cup that night. That goal came eleven seconds into the 3rd period. Bobby Clarke knocked Jerry Korab off the puck behind the Sabres net. Bob “The Hound” Kelly picked up the loose puck and beat Roger Crozier with a wrap-around to give the Flyers the one goal lead.
“You can tell in our dressing room before the game began that we were going to win. You could sense how ready we all were. It was quiet. Nobody was saying anything, but you could sense it”.
-Bill Barber
With less than three minutes left in regulation Orest Kindrachuk blocked a shot in the Flyers end and came away with the puck. He skated into the Buffalo zone and dished a pass from the side boards to Bill Clement all alone in front who sealed the deal scoring the insurance goal on a breakaway. At that point back in Philly the town began to erupt into a party that lasted for days.
Celebration
The previous year when the Flyers defeated the Bruins at home the spark was instantaneous. Fans were pouring in off the street and running right onto the Spectrum ice as Clarke and Parent struggled to make a lap around the rink with the trophy. It was automatic mayhem and every single Stanley Cup presentation since has paled in comparison.
This time Flyers Fans had to wait for the team to return home from Buffalo with The Cup but that did not keep the celebration from starting. It was a Tuesday and the town never went silent overnight leading up to the parade the following day.
Over two million people crowded the streets of center city as the parade traveled down Broad Street with the Flyers and their prized trophy traveling the route on flatbed trucks.
In 1974 when the Flyers won their first Stanly Cup Championship people weren’t sure quite what to expect. The massive turnout for the first parade took many by surprise. By the second championship everyone was well aware of who the Flyers were and exactly what they had been up to. Even the Catholic schools were granting dispensations for truancy for that second parade.
Over 75,000 fans filled JFK Stadium waiting in the blistering sun for the Flyers to arrive. The crowd went wild as the flatbed trucks came into view at the far end of the massive stadium. With anticipation building to a fevered pitch fans watched in comical disbelief as some lanky naked ginger dude came running into the stadium ahead of the trucks. He was unceremoniously tackled into the gravel by some of Philly’s Finest making way for the reining Stanley Cup Champions to greet their adoring fans.
“Hattrick in 76” …almost
Flyers Fever had totally taken hold of the Delaware Valley by the bicentennial year. All eyes were on Philly as the nation celebrated it’s 200th birthday and Rocky One was just about to light up the box offices. Street hockey became all the rage. A ticket to a Flyers game was near impossible to come by. If you were around in 1976 you know it truly was “Flyers Country”.
The terrible “Broad Street Bullies” became North America’s sweethearts when they defeated the “Russian Red Army Team” on January 11th 1976 by the score of 4-1. The Flyers outshot the Soviet team 49-13. It was the first time an NHL team had ever beaten the Red Army.
After proving themselves with their second straight Stanley Cup Championship the Flyers had an even stronger regular season in 1975-76. Their record was 51-13-16 losing just two games at home all season. They scored more goals than any other team in the NHL. The Flyers had eight players on the roster with more than 20 goals.
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Bobby Clarke won the Hart Trophy yet again with 119 points and was a plus 83 on the season. Bill Barber scored 50 goals and was a plus 74. Reggie Leach scored a league leading 61 goals and was plus 73. Although the Flyers did not pull off the three-peat they did make it back to the Stanley Cup Final where they were eventually swept by the Montreal Canadiens.
Bernie Parent appeared in only 11 games during the 1975-76 season as he was recovering from surgery. Although Wayne Stevenson did a fine job in Parent’s absence you can’t help but wonder how the Cup Final may have went with Parent between the pipes. Three of the four games against the Canadiens were decided by just one goal.
Reggie Leach was the first non-goaltender to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs while being a member of the losing team. Leach is still tied for two NHL records he achieved in 1975. Scoring 19 goals in a single playoff year and scoring 5 goals in a single playoff game. Although these achievements have been matched they have yet to be surpassed.
Did the Flyers intimidate teams with their physical approach to the game? Sure. Did they back it up with a deep bench full of talented players, Hall of Fame goaltending, and brilliant coaching? The proof is in the pudding. Hats off to the Stanley Cup Philadelphia Flyers you guys laid the foundation that has made Philly one of the greatest hockey towns in North America.
Extra Credit: Ron Hextall also won the Conn Smythe when the Flyers lost in the Final to Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers in 1987. Coincidentally, Leach and Hextall both wore #27 during their tenure with the Flyers.
