Hockey Works Overtime

It was during one of the overtimes--after a while, they began to run together--that Philadelphia goalie John Vanbiesbrouck told teammates they were involved in something special.

“This is epic,” Vanbiesbrouck said as the Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins struggled through five extra periods in Game 4 of their NHL playoff series. “This is going to go down in history.”

He was right.

Game 4 of the Flyers-Penguins Stanley Cup series ended at 2:35 in the morning, 6 hours, 56 minutes after it began. The teams played 60 minutes of regulation followed by 92 minutes, 1 second of overtime. It stands as the third longest game in hockey history, a drama that ended with players on both teams physically and mentally drained.

One overtime has that effect, when every rush, every shot can end the game. Play two, three, four, five of them and the tension grows exponentially. It becomes a game of attrition, a battle for survival that seems to be carried on in slow motion as the legs become rubbery and the brain blurry.

Now suppose every game of the Cup finals were like that, every game stretching into overtime, not in some early round series but in the finals, with Lord Stanley’s hardware hanging in the balance on every shift.

The new Total Stanley Cup Encyclopedia lists every overtime game in Cup history from 1918-1999, including all five that made the 1951 finals between Toronto and Montreal one of the most memorable series in the rich history of that old mug.

“At that point, it’s a flip of the coin when two teams are so evenly matched,” said Teeder Kennedy, who scored one of the OT winners that year for Toronto. “There’s a great deal of pressure but you just play as hard as you can. You’re not allowed to dwell on the pressure even though it’s there. You concentrate and don’t take chances.”

This was a proud Toronto team, Cup champions for three straight years from 1947-49, back in the finals in 1951 against the Canadiens in a renewal of a bitter rivalry.

These were the Leafs of Max Bentley, who assisted on 11 goals that playoff year, and Sid Smith and Harry Watson, who each scored OT game-winners against Montreal. They were the Leafs of goalies Turk Broda, who had 13 career playoff shutouts, and Al Rollins, who kept Toronto in every game.

And they were the Leafs of a slender, curly haired defenseman named Bill Barilko.

Barilko was only 19 when the Leafs called him up at the end of the 1946-47 season, but he quickly established himself as a defensive mainstay. He led the league in penalty minutes in his first full season and his name was carved on the Cup three times.

In the opening game of the 1951 finals against Montreal, Barilko saved the Leafs. With Toronto’s goalie out of position, Maurice Richard swooped in on the net and fired the puck. The defenseman flung himself across the gaping goal mouth to block the shot and preserve a 2-2 tie that became a Leafs’ victory when Smith scored in overtime.

Up three games to one, Toronto went for the KO in Game 5. In the final minute of regulation, coach Joe Primeau pulled his goalie and Tod Sloan scored, forcing another OT.

Less than three minutes into the extra period it was over. Meeker was behind the Canadiens’ net when he threw the puck out front. Barilko, who had not had a goal or an assist in the series, skated over the blue line and launched a shot at Montreal goalie Gerry McNeil.

The momentum carried him off his feet and the picture of him lunging toward the net as the puck flew over McNeil’s shoulder for the Cup winner is a classic that takes two pages in the Stanley Cup book.

“He broke rank and took a chance,” Kennedy said. “He abandoned the point. He darted in for the puck. Primeau had been on him about doing that, telling him he was going to get the hook if he kept it up.” As his teammates carried Barilko off the ice, Kennedy recalled the defenseman shouting at Primeau, “I guess there’s no hook for me now.”

It turned out to be the last goal Barilko ever scored. That summer, the young defenseman left his home in the mining town of Timmins, Ontario, with a friend for a fishing trip to northern Canada. Their small private plane was never heard from again.