This Day in Hockey History – October 14, 1979 – Flyers Go Far

Oct 14, 2018

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The Philadelphia Flyers enjoyed many high points throughout the 1970s. One of them was an astonishing unbeaten streak, lasting 35 games, which began on October 14, 1979. Their streak outlasted not only other hockey teams but all North American professional sports.

The Flyers’ streak started at the Spectrum and ended on the road. The 1979-80 season started off promising on October 11 with a 5-2 win against the New York Islanders. The second game, two days later in Atlanta, gave the Flyers their only loss for the next three months. On October 14, the team returned to their own rink to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3. Philadelphia then proceeded to win 25 games and tie 10 combining for a 35-game undefeated streak, two beyond the Los Angeles Lakers’ previous record of 33 basketball games. The streak finally ended on January 7, 1980, at the Metropolitan Sports Center, when the Minnesota North Stars crushed the Flyers 7-1.

Since the Flyers recently had collected two Stanley Cup wins (in 1974 and 1975) before narrowly missing a third (in 1976), their success during the 1979-80 season likely surprised few. After their unbeaten streak, they ended the regular season with a record of 48-12-20 (116 points). Unsurprisingly, the Flyers had the fewest losses in the league, led the Patrick Division, and placed first overall.

For the playoffs, the Flyers swept the Edmonton Oilers in the preliminary round and then proceeded to knock out the New York Rangers and Minnesota North Stars (in five games each) in the quarter and semi-finals. For a moment, it looked like the North Stars might again disrupt the Flyers’ plans, but they only managed to win the first game of their series. Then the Flyers took on the New York Islanders in the finals. The teams split the first two games held at the Spectrum, the Flyers lost the next two at Long Island, and then the Flyers took another win at home. However, the sixth game would mean returning to Nassau Coliseum, where the Flyers had won only a single game in the past five years. Unfortunately for the Flyers, they could not manage to add another game to the win tally and lost to the Islanders 4-2. The Islanders then continued with their own streak winning four Stanley Cup championships in a row. Meanwhile, the Flyers have yet to win another.