top of page
Search

Red Wings Score OT Win, Even NHL Finals with Leafs at 1-1

Apr. 15, 1964 - Larry Jeffrey, 23-year-old Detroit left winger, scored at 7:52 of overtime last night to give the Red Wings a well-deserved 4-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs and square their best-of-seven Stanley Cup final at one game apiece. The youngster, playing his second full season in the NHL, broke up the game when he banged the puck past Toronto goalkeeper Johnny Bower before a crowd of 14,017 at Maple Leaf Gardens.

The Wings, who lost a heart-breaking 3-2 decision to the Leafs in the series opener Saturday night when Toronto scored two third-period goal, almost threw this one away after out-skating and out-hustling the defending Cup champions for a 3-1 lead. When the Wings let up momentarily, Red Kelly and then Gerry Ehman, a recruit called up from Rochester of the American League, tied it up for Toronto in the third period. Ehman’s goal came with only 43 seconds left in regulation. But Jeffrey’s overtime heroics sent Detroit home on even terms.

Other Red Wing scorers were Eddie Joyal, Floyd Smith, and Norm Ullman.

“I’d have to admit it was one of the best games I’ve ever played,” said Ullman. “I felt really good out there. On that winning goal by Larry, I got the puck along the boards and tried to draw some Leafs over to me. Then I saw Gordie [Howe] in the corner and gave it to him. He whipped it over to Jeffrey, and that was it.”

Jeffrey said he didn’t know what he would have done had he missed on the chance. “It was a perfect pass from Gord. I yelled to him when I thought I was set up, and he put it right on my stick. I just flipped it, and it was in.”

Detroit manager-coach Sid Abel expressed great satisfaction at the victory.

“You have to say we have the advantage now,” he asserted. “It’s a best-of-five series now, and we have three games at home.”

“I’ll tell you something,” Abel continued. “I’ve been in this game a long time, but never have I seen a team with as much guts as this one. They don’t know what it is to quit. I was a little nervous when the overtime started because I didn’t know how that tying goal in the last minute would affect them. But they again proved their guts and carried the play.”

As for manager-coach Punch Imlach of the Leafs, he said there were too many spectators last night — his forwards.

“The forwards just stood around and watched the play,” said Imlach. “Our forwards lost the game for us. They were out-hustled all the way. The team played good hockey for 15 minutes and the rest of the time they couldn’t get hold of the puck.”

Imlach said an overtime loss is no more crushing to morale than a defeat during regulation.

“What the heck,” he said, “it’s just another hockey game. This makes a best-of-five series, and it looks as if it’s going to be a long, drawn-out affair. This team just can’t win five, six, or seven big ones in a row. They haven’t done it all season, and I guess they can’t do it now. But in that Montreal series, they came up with the big ones that they had to take, and I know they can do it again.”



Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s

Comments


© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

bottom of page