1927-28
More signs that the Ottawa Senators were in deep financial trouble. The club had asked the league for a bigger share of road game income. It was something the NHL pondered but ultimately turned down the request. That forced the Senators into another wave of selling of players as winger Babe Dye was sold to Toronto, center Hooley Smith to the Montreal Maroons and goaltender George Hainsworth to Detroit. In addition to Ottawa's long running battle to remain solvent, the Pittsburgh Pirates found life no better in the American steel town than they did in the Canadian one in Hamilton. Like Ottawa, the Pirates seemed just one misstep away from folding and their troubles were compounded because, unlike the Senators, Pittsburgh did not have a deep collection of talented players that it could draw from to sell for money to keep the club afloat.
Aside from Conn Smythe renaming his new Toronto franchise to the Maple Leafs and construction completed on Olympia Stadium so the Detroit Cougars could play in the Motor City instead of a second season in Windsor, little changed as the league embarked on its second season with 10 teams.
Little changed during the regular season from the previous year either. While the New York Americans were much improved it was once more the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto and Ottawa that dominated the league. The order was slightly different from last year with the Habs first, followed by the Senators and Leafs but the three still claimed the Canadian Division playoff spots.
Scoring was down on the league as a whole but the Habs Howie Morenz still managed to score 25 goals in 44 games and led the loop in points with 54. Hooley Smith, who was sold by Ottawa to the Montreal Maroons over the summer, finished second in scoring followed by a pair of Senators in Marty Barry and Cooney Weiland. To illustrate the premium on goals this season, one needs to look no further than the top goaltenders, where six of the ten teams had netminders with a goals against average less than 2.00.
Speaking of goaltenders, the most controversial trade of the season involved one as Boston shipped its starting goalie Tiny Thompson to the Canadiens in exchange for forward Aurel Joliat. Montreal goaltender Alec Connell had suffered a back injury a few days before but ended up missing just one game, so the Habs move to add Thompson seemed very redundant. The trade became more perplexing after the season ended as the Canadiens elected not to sign Connell despite the fact he had won the Murray Trophy this season.
While four of the five teams in the Canadian Division finished with a positive record and even the last place Montreal Maroons managed to earn 43 points in 44 games the New York Rangers were the only team in the American Division to top the .500 mark. Frank Boucher continued to pace the New York offense while Charlie Gardiner was thought by many to be a better choice than Connell for the Murray Trophy this year. Detroit and Boston tied for second place to round out the American Division playoff field.
PLAYOFFS
There may have been concerns in Boston about Bill Beveridge taking over in net after the trade of Thompson but the 18-year-old proved he was up to the task in the playoffs. Boston outscored Detroit 8-2 in the two-game series and Aurel Joliat was a big part of the Bruins' offense. The ex-Canadien scored twice and added an assist in a 4-1 win in the opener while Jimmy Herberts scored a pair of goals in another 4-1 victory to close out the series.
That put the Bruins up against the first place New York Rangers and they came up short in the series opener, being blanked 3-0 as Charlie Gardiner made 21 saves for his second career playoff shutout. Game two the story was once more Beveridge and Joliat. The young goalie stopped all 31 New York shots while Joliat scored twice and added an assist as the Bruins tallied four goals in the second period and claimed the series win with a 4-0 shutout.
In the Canadian Division playoffs, Toronto and Ottawa skated to a 1-1 tie in the nation's capital in the series opener before the Maple Leafs wrapped up the series with a 3-1 victory at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto two nights later.
For the second year in a row the Leafs would need to get by the Canadiens in order to play for the Stanley Cup but once more Toronto fell short. Bill Cook and Nels Stewart each had a goal and an assist as Montreal took the opener 4-1 at Forum and two nights later the clubs skated to a 1-1 draw setting up a Stanley Cup rematch of the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.
The best-of-five series opened at the Montreal Forum and the Canadiens struck quickly riding first period goals from Reg Mackey, Howie Morenz and Earl Campbell to a 3-0 victory with Alec Connell making 25 saves for the shutout. Game two was another shutout for Connell as he stopped 35 shots this time around and Montreal won 5-0 with Stewart scoring once and adding a pair of assists. Boston did finally score in game three as they shifted to Boston's Matthews Arena, but the Habs completed the sweep with a 6-3 victory led by a three-point night from Bill Cook. It was the second straight Cup win for the Canadiens, their fourth since the start of the NHL and seventh all-time.
1928 OLYMPIC GAMES
The 1928 Winter Olympics were contested in St. Moritz, Switzerland with Canada looking to defend the gold medal it won four years ago. In real-life, it was the University of Toronto Graduates, winners of the 1927 Allan Cup when they were coached by Conn Smythe, that represented Canada. FHM will, of course, use a random collection of minor league and junior age players.
Canada was granted a bye into the championship round leaving ten teams spread over three divisions in the Group phase. Group A consisted of Great Britain, France, Belgium and Hungary. Group B was Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Poland while the teams in Group C were Switzerland, Austria and Germany. One noticeable absence was that of the United States, which had won gold in our sim in 1920 and the silver four years later. In real the AAU hockey committee approached several college teams about sending a squad to St. Moritz but all refused because of classes or a lack of finance.
Interestingly I learned that one school - Minnesota's Augsburg College- accepted the invitation. They eventually were denied permission by the AAU after it was discovered three members of the team had previously played for eastern colleges under different names as the national body said they were not representative of USA hockey.
The Group Stage of the tournament saw Belgium prevail in Group A, Sweden take top spot in B and Switzerland go undefeated to win Group C. Those three teams would join Canada in the Medal Round.
Canada blasted Belgium 8-0 in its opening game as Vic Ripley, who would go on to play 278 NHL games in real life, scored twice as the Canadians outshot their opponents 79-5. Switzerland edged Sweden, bronze medalists in both 1920 and 1924, 4-3 in the other day one game in the Medal Round.
Canada had little trouble with the Swiss a day later, blanking them 5-0 with Frank Morris scoring twice while Sweden shutout Belgium 4-0. Canada would complete the sweep of the finals two days later with another shutout victory, this one by a 5-0 score over Sweden. Switzerland shaded Belgium 3-2 to give the Swiss the Silver medal while Sweden claimed bronze for the third consecutive Olympic Games.
The leading scorer in the sim was a tie between Belgium's Jean Meeus and defenseman Erik Lindgren of Sweden. I could find very little on Meeus besides the fact he did actually play for Belgium in the 1928 Olympics. Lindgren apparently had a long career with Djurgarden in the Swedish league and played for Sweden in the 1931 World Hockey Championships but did not play in the '28 Olympics. The top Canadian scorers were Frank Morris and Vic Ripley. Ripley would go on to play for several NHL teams while Morris appears to never have played pro hockey in North America but was a playing coach in Switzerland and worked for a long spell for the Hudson Bay Company. In our sim Morris played three seasons with Saskatoon in the WCHL and most recently was with the Windsor Hornets of the non-playable Canadian Professional Hockey League. He is 24 so we may still hear from Morris going forward. In the sim, Ripley is jus 21 and in his final year at the non-playable US College level after two seasons with a junior team.
The top goaltender was Canada's Joe Ironstone, who in real life played in 1 NHL game for the New York Americans in 1925-26 and one for the Leads in 1927-28. In our sim the 29-year-old Sudbury native was signed to play in the non-playable French league as a 16-year-old and has been there ever since. He was also the Canadian goalie for the 1924 Olympics and has a record 6 Olympic shutouts so far. I don't expect a North American team to ever sign him so Ironstone may get a chance for at least one more Olympic gold medal.
1928-29
The National Hockey League began its 12th season with the same 10 team structure and 44 game slate that it had finished its 11th campaign with but there was a change to the playoff format. Instead of the opening round being within your division the league decided the two second place teams would face each other while the two third place teams would square off in the other quarterfinal series. Both would be a two-game total goal series but then the winners from that series would play a best-of-five series. The other semi-final would see the two division winners, after getting a bye in the quarterfinals, play each other in a best-of-five. The Cup final would be a best-of-three series.
The league was also determined to increase scoring, so a number of changes were implemented including the rule to permit forward passing from the neutral zone across the blueline into the attacking zone, as long as no offensive player proceeded the puck. At this point forward passing inside the attacking zone was still prohibited but the league did experiment with allowing that in a late season game between the Rangers and Pittsburgh. Regular season overtime was changed to a 10-minute, non-sudden death format, to be played in its entirety.
The Boston Bruins moved into their new arena this season. Originally called Boston Madison Square Garden, the name was shortened to just the Boston Garden a little later. The Garden was designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York's Madison Square Garden. The Chicago Black Hawks had hoped to move into their new building but construction on the Chicago Stadium was not completed in time and the club was forced from January until the end of the season to play its home games either in Detroit at the Olympia or at the Peace Bridge Arena in Fort Erie, Ont.
The Canadian Division proved to be a battle between the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. It came down to the final week of the season with the Habs holding on to repeat as division champions by nosing Toronto out by a single point. Tiny Thompson was outstanding in the Montreal net and shattered the old NHL shutout record of 11 with 18 of them this season. Up front, the trio of Nels Stewart, Howie Morenz and Bill Cook allowed the Canadiens to lead the league in goals scored. Toronto was led by King Clancy's outstanding season on the blueline. The New York Americans earned the final playoff berth, finishing ahead of both the Montreal Maroons and the Ottawa Senators, who missed postseason action for the first time since their final season in the NHA back in 1916-17.
The big news in the American Division was a blockbuster trade in December between Boston and the New York Rangers. The move saw the Bruins send tough defenseman Eddie Shore and veteran forward Frank Finnigan to the Big Apple in exchange for goaltender Charlie Gardiner and center Dutch Gainor. It seemed a heavy price to pay for a Bruins team that seemed to be playing quite well in front of young Bill Beveridge. Gardiner ended up with a losing record in Beantown and the Bruins had to settle for second place. The Rangers, meanwhile, fared just fine with 29-year-old rookie Herb Rheaume taking over the goaltending chores while both Eddie Shore and Frank Finnigan found new life in New York. Shore had just 1 point to show for 12 games with Boston but scored 21 in his 30 games with the Rangers while Finnigan had a similar transformation, picking up 17 points with the Rangers after earning just 5 as a Bruin. Add in Frank Boucher's 40-point season and strong play from young center Andy Blair and it was easy to understand why the Rangers led their division.
Boston still had Dit Clapper to anchor its defense, and the Bruins were impressed with Gainor after he came over from New York but there were worries about Aurel Joliat as the 27-year-old dipped from 36 points a year ago to just 26 this time around. The Bruins did finish second, holding off the Chicago Black Hawks by two points who claimed the final playoff berth, edging out the Detroit Cougars. The Pittsburgh Pirates, as usual, brought up the rear.
PLAYOFFS
The new format meant that Toronto and Boston would meet for the first time in the playoffs while the other quarterfinal series saw the New York Americans square off with the Chicago Black Hawks. The Bruins hosted the Leafs in the opener of their two-game total goal series, but it was Toronto that jumped out to the lead with a 3-1 victory despite strong goaltending from Charlie Gardiner on the Bruins net. Gardiner was outstanding two nights later in blanking Toronto but the Boston offense could only score one goal, so their 1-0 victory was not enough to win the series.
Chicago and the Americans tied 1-1 in their first game, which was played at Detroit's Olympia Stadium because Chicago's new arena was still not completed. The rematch at Madison Square Garden was all Chicago as John Ross Roach had an amazing 51 save shutout as the Black Hawks won 4-0 thanks to a pair of goals from Butch Keeling.
The two semi-final series would be a best of five with the first-place teams Montreal and the New York Rangers squaring off in one series while Toronto and Chicago met in the other one. Toronto swept its series but all three games were decided by a single goal: 2-1 thanks to an early third period goal from Joe Primeau, 1-0 with Joe Miller getting the shutout and Ace Bailey scoring the Leafs goal with 20 seconds left in regulation and finally 2-1 in a game the Leafs outshot the Hawks 62-20.
The Rangers won the opener of their series with Montreal as Eddie Shore got the game winner midway through the third period in a 2-1 New York victory on home ice at Madison Square Garden. Montreal trailed 2-1 in the second game until midway through the third period when a pair of quick goals from Bill Cook and Nels Stewart lifted the Habs to a 3-2 victory. The third game needed overtime to decide a winner and it was Montreal's Earl Campbell who was the hero, scoring just over seven minutes into the extra period to give the Habs a 3-2 victory on home ice. The Canadiens wrapped up the series two nights later with a 2-1 victory behind goals from Bun Cook and Johnny Shepard. Bun, the younger brother of Montreal captain Bill Cook, was a long-time Bruin who was acquired by the Canadiens in an early season deal.
Montreal would be looking for its third straight Cup but instead of facing Boston, which was the case each of the previous two seasons, the Canadiens would meet the Toronto Maple Leafs. Unlike recent years, this series would be just a two-game total goal affair. Montreal led by a 37-save performance from Tiny Thompson, won the opener at The Forum by a 3-1 score. Harold Starr scored for the Canadiens in the first period with Earl Campbell doubling the lead in the middle frame. Babe Dye got Toronto on the board midway through the third frame before the Leafs pulled netminder Joe Miller in the final minute for an extra attacker, but the move backfired as Bun Cook deposited a puck into the empty net to give the Habs a 3-1 victory heading to Toronto for game two. The Leafs had all kinds of trouble solving Thompson in the second game, and never did as despite outshooting Montreal 30-25, Toronto lost 1-0 as Gerry Lowrey's first period powerplay goal stood up and gave Montreal a sweep in the short series. It marked the third straight Cup for the Habs, fifth since the formation of the NHL and ninth overall.
NOTABLE RETIREMENT
Frank Nighbor, who was the all-time leader in goals, assists and points in the combined PCHA/WCHL has announced his retirement at the age of 36. A three-time Most Valuable Player of PCHA, Nighbor was a member of the Vancouver franchise for its entire 15 year run before moving on to the Detroit Cougars after the Western League folded. He helped Vancouver reach the Stanley Cup finals three times, but his club came up short in each of them.
The real-life Nighbor, a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee in 1947, was known as the Pembroke Peach. He played for Ottawa of the NHA, Vancouver in the PCHA and finally Toronto in the NHL. His real-life stay was much shorter than in the sim as he left Vancouver for the Ottawa Senators in 1915 and would play 14 NHL seasons in addition to two years in the PCHA and four in the NHA.