Mar. 17, 1964 - The Black Hawks regained first place in the NHL tonight by shutting out the New York Rangers, 4-0, before a delighted Chicago Stadium audience of 15,214. How long the Hawks can stay in that lofty position depends on four teams — Toronto, Boston, New York, and themselves. The first three will provide the remaining opposition for the second-place Montreal Canadiens, who trail Chicago by two points. The Hawks have only their season’s 70th game to play, visiting Boston Sunday night.
Tonight’s triumph saw the Hawks serve up one club record, keep three new personal marks simmering, and begin cooking two others:
— The two points gained gave them an all-time high season total of 82 points, one over last season’s record.
— Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull are now adding to their new personal pointmaking records for all Hawks, Stan with a league-leading 89 and Bobby with a second-place 86. Both are now past Hull’s former mark of 84, set two years ago. Captain Pierre Pilote also fortified his lead in all-time scoring for a Hawk defensive player, raising it to 51 points, six over his own record.
— The records in prospect are the team season total goals target — 217 — and Mikita’s club record for assists. The Hawks need four goals at Boston to break the goals record, and Stan needs three assists to bust his record of 52.
Goalie Glenn Hall was spectacular tonight, authoring his seventh season shutout and the 58th of his career. After the 94 pucks Montreal and Detroit threw at Hall in the recent lost weekend, he had to fend off only 28 Ranger shots tonight. Hall now stands second only to the eight shutouts with which Montreal’s Charley Hodge leads the league.
Hull, still trying to close in on that league record-tying mark of 50 goals of two years ago, got Nos. 42 and 43 in the first period.
Mikita, who assisted on the second Hull goal, almost kept pace with Hull by driving from mid-rink to within eight feet of goalie Jacques Plante for an unassisted goal, his No. 39. That made it 3-0, and Billy Hay ran the count to the conclusive 4-0 by getting his 23rd goal on passes from Hull and Aut Erickson.
