The National Hockey League was formed in 1917 for one reason - to kick
out Eddie Livingstone. The owner of the Toronto Blueshirts franchise
of the forerunner National Hockey Association, Livingstone was accused
of creating unfair advantages for himself and his team. Toronto was
granted a new NHL team, the Arenas (run by the Arena Gardens), but
Livingstone would still get to lease his players to the team. They won
the Stanley Cup that first season.
The team would be renamed the St.
Patricks in the midst of a losing stretch in 1919, but would once
again reach the Cup in 1922, with Babe Dye (with an overtime winner in
game two and four goals in the deciding fifth game) being the team's
hero. They would narrowly miss the playoffs in 1923, despite Dye's 26
goals in 22 games.
In 1926, Conn Smythe, one of the team's best-known icons, purchased
the St. Pats and renamed them the Maple Leafs. After five more
lackluster seasons, Smythe and the Leafs debuted their new arena,
Maple Leaf Gardens, in November 1931, and their Kid Line (Busher
Jackson, Charlie Conacher and Joe Primeau) would propel them to
Toronto's third Cup during the first season in their new digs. They
would go the distance in the semi-finals against the Boston Bruins in
1932, winning in the sixth overtime of the final game, but would be
overwhelmed in the Stanley Cup finals against the New York Rangers.
Star
Ace Bailey would have his career cut short in 1933 after the
Bruins'
Eddie Shore blindsided him. Undeterred, the Leafs would reach the
finals five more times in the next seven years, but would not win:
bowing out to the now-defunct
Montreal Maroons, to the
Detroit Red Wings in 1936, to the
Chicago Blackhawks in 1938, the Boston Bruins in 1939, and the
New York Rangers in 1940.
They looked to suffer a similar fate in 1942, down three games to
none in a best-of-seven final in 1942 against the Detroit Red Wings.
Fourth-line forward
Don Metz would galvanize the team, coming from nowhere to score a
game-winning goal in game 4 and a
hat
trick in game 5, with the Leafs winning both times. Goalie
Turk Broda would shut out the Wings in game 6, and
Sweeney Schriner would score two goals in the third period to win
the seventh game 3-1. It was the only time a major pro sports team
came back from behind 3-0 to win a best-of-seven championship series.
Three years later, with their heroes from 1942 dwindling (due to
either age, health, or the war), the Leafs turned to lesser-known
players like goalie
Frank McCool and blueliner
Babe Pratt. They would upset the
Montreal Canadiens in the 1945 finals.
The Habs would be the Leafs' nemesis again two years later when, in
Howie Meeker's rookie season, they met in the finals.
Teeder Kennedy would score the game-winning goal late in game 6 to
win the Leafs their first of three straight Cups -- the first time any
NHL team had accomplished that feat. It may have been four straight
(or even five, considering what happened in 1951), had the Red Wings'
Leo Reise not scored in sudden-death of game 7 of a semi-final
series in 1950.
The Leafs and Habs would once again meet in the finals in 1951,
with all five-games going to overtime.
Max Bentley scored with 32 seconds left in the third period of
game 5 to send it to overtime, and defenseman
Bill Barilko, who scored only six goals in the regular season,
scored the game-winner to win Toronto their fourth Cup in five years.
Barilko's glory was short-lived: he died in a plane crash three months
after that historical moment.
Toronto would not reach the finals again until 1959, when a
late-season charge put them into the playoffs on the final night of
the season, they stroke through the Bruins in the semi-finals, but
lost to the Canadiens in the finals. The 1960 finals were yet another
Montreal-Toronto rematch, but the Habs swept the Leafs to win their
fifth straight Cup.
Harold Ballard bought the Leafs in 1962, and by his death in 1991,
would be chastised for his lack of will to get top players. They
weren't saying that in 1962:
Frank Mahovlich, second-year player
Dave Keon, defenseman
Bob Pulford and future doughnut magnate
Tim Horton would lead the Leafs to their first of three straight
championships.
In 1967, the Leafs and Habs met in the Cup finals for the last
time. Bob Pulford scored the double-overtime winner in game 3, Jim
Pappen got the game winner in game 6, and
Dave Keon won the Conn Smythe trophy as the Maple Leafs won in six
games. They have not won the Stanley Cup, or even been to the finals,
since.
With the exception of a few brief stretches of glory, Toronto has
never really been a major force in the NHL since 1967 and the era of
the
original six. The first of these stretches was in the late 1970s,
when the team led by
Darryl Sittler,
Lanny McDonald, enforcer
Tiger Williams, and
Borje Salming (the first Swede to make a name for himself in the
NHL) would lead the Leafs to some glory, but only once made it past
the second round of the playoffs, besting the
New York Islanders, a future Stanley Cup dynasty, in the 1978
quarter-finals, only to be swept by their one-time arch-rivals, the
Montreal Canadiens, in the semi-finals.
Toronto missed the playoffs five times in ten years between 1982
and 1992, but in 1993, a spark was lit.
Doug Gilmour, who had come over from the
Calgary Flames the previous season, scored 32 goals and 127 points
to lead the team in scoring.
Dave Andreychuk had also come to the Leafs (from the
Buffalo Sabres) and would score 25 goals in 31 games, as well as
being the league's biggers power-play goal scorer.
Felix Potvin was solid with a 2.5 goals-against average. Toronto
had their highest point total in team history to that date, with 99.
The Leafs dispatched with the Red Wings in the first round with an
overtime winner in game seven, then won the
Norris division by winning over the
St. Louis Blues.
With Montreal facing the
New York Islanders in the
Wales Conference finals, Canadians were once again dreaming of a
Montreal-Toronto clash for the Cup as the Leafs faced the
Los Angeles Kings in the Campbell conference final.
Wayne Gretzky's hat trick in game 6 put a damper on that though,
as the Kings moved on to the finals.
Those hoping for an all-Canadian Stanley Cup final in 1993 had to
make do with an all-Canadian
Western Conference final (in the newly renamed
Campbell conference) in 1994. The Leafs, however, were no match
for the
Vancouver Canucks, losing in five games.
After two years out of the playoffs in the late 1990s, the Leafs
made another charge in the 1999 playoffs, moving out of Maple Leaf
Gardens and into the new Air Canada Centre in the meantime.
Mats Sundin, who joined the team from the
Quebec Nordiques in 1994, had one of his most productive seasons,
scoring 31 goals and 83 points.
Sergei Berezin would also score 30 goals,
Curtis Joseph won 35 games with a 2.56 GAA average, and enforcer
Tie
Domi racked up 198 penalty minutes. The Leafs ran past the
Philadelphia Flyers and
Pittsburgh Penguins in the first two rounds of the playoffs, but
were ravaged in five games by the Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern
Conference finals.
The Maple Leafs would reach the second round in both 2000 and 2001,
losing both times to the
New Jersey Devils. In 2002, they would dispatch the Islanders and
Ottawa Senators in the first two rounds, but would lose to the
cinderella
Carolina Hurricanes in the Conference finals.
Curtis Joseph left to go to the Red Wings in the 2002 off-season.
They immediately found a suitable replacement,
Ed Belfour, from the
Dallas Stars. Belfour could not help their playoff woes in the
2003
playoffs, however, as they lost to the
Philadelphia Flyers in seven games in the first round.
In 2004, after posting a franchise record number of points, despite
finishing fourth in the Eastern Conference, the Leafs defeated the
Senators for the fourth time in five years, but made another quick
exit from the post-season against the Flyers, this time in six games.
Players of Note
Team Captains
[1] (http://plaidworks.com/maple-leafs/captain.html)
Current stars
Not to be forgotten
-
Curtis Joseph
-
Doug Gilmour
-
Wendel Clark
Retired Numbers
- 5
Bill Barilko
- 6
Ace Bailey
- 99
Wayne Gretzky (retired league-wide by the NHL)
Honored Numbers
- 1
Turk Broda and
Johnny Bower
- 7
King Clancy and
Tim Horton
- 9
Ted Kennedy and
Charlie Conacher
- 10
Syl Apps and
George Armstrong
- 27
Darryl Sittler and
Frank Mahovlich
Toronto Maple Leafs