Leafs Devastate Rangers, 10-1, at MSG

Mar. 21, 1965 - “Score! Score! Score! Score!” Toronto defenseman Carl Brewer yelled in the Maple Leaf dressing room at Madison Square Garden tonight. He repeated it 10 times, once for each of the Leafs’ 10 goals — one for each time Toronto hockey announcer Foster Hewitt shouted with glee on the Maple Leaf hockey network.

“You must have worked hard up there,” Brewer told Hewitt. Perhaps Hewitt did, but no one could accuse the Rangers of the same thing. The Leafs piled up the largest goal total on the Rangers this season as they humiliated New York, 10-1, in front of 9,349 fans, the smallest turnout of the year. 

“There was an Eastern Hockey League game suspended in the first period today [Knoxville vs. Nashville], and that’s what they should have done here tonight,” Ranger general manager Emile Francis said. That would have saved the Rangers the embarrassment of losing their 36th game of the season — three short of the all-time Ranger record of 39 set in 1943-44, when they played a 50-game schedule. 

“Look,” Sullivan continued, “if you let them stand in front of the net and don’t hit them, they’ll fill the net against you. I wish I could think of a few excuses for this game tonight, but I just can’t. [Rod] Seiling was standing in front of the goal holding [Red] Kelly out, but Kelly still got his stick down to score a goal. That’s not supposed to happen.” Kelly got his stick down to score two other goals, too.

“We were outmuscled,” Sullivan concluded. “They bullied us in the first period, and we were dead. We try to tell them, but you can’t go out and play for them.”

Ranger fans had three prolonged cheers during the slaughter. Their first came when Don Marshall prevented a shutout with his 20th goal of the season in the final period. The second response was a treacherous roar when Kelly scored the 10th goal. And the last hurrah came when the announcer said, “One minute to play in the game.”

Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s