This Day in Hockey History – May 5, 1974 – Flying Towards the Cup

May 5, 2019

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The NHL doubled from the Original Six in 1967, but it took until 1974 before one of the expansion teams moved into the Stanley Cup finals by defeating an established team. On May 5 that year, the Philadelphia Flyers won Game 7 of the semi-finals against the New York Rangers.

At the end of the regular season, the Flyers finished first in the West Division (and only one point behind the NHL-leading Boston Bruins) with 112 points (50-16-12). They swept the Atlanta Flames in the quarter-finals before meeting the Rangers in the semi-finals. Rangers coach Emile Francis said of the Flyers, “Hell, yes, they got talent. They got a great goalie and the best defense in the league and they just keep swarming you. Flukes? You don’t fluke yourself into first place in this league.” The Flyers started strong winning the first two games at home. It turned out, though, that both teams could only win before the home crowds.

Luckily for the Flyers, Game 7 was played at Philadelphia’s Spectrum before 17,007 fans. Still, during the first period, New York drew first blood, though Philadelphia matched them less than a minute later. The Flyers scored two unanswered goals in the second session. Twelve seconds after the Rangers scored at 8:49 of the third, Gary Dornhoefer scored his second goal of the night for the Flyers. The final goal of the night was New York’s, but that was not enough to catch Philadelphia. The poor Rangers did not help themselves when they were called for having too many men on the ice as they tried to pull goalie Ed Giacomin in the last minute. The exhausted goalie commented afterwards, “Every time you think you’re about to gain some ground on them, they kick everything out from under you. Then you scramble back up and look around and you’re further behind than you were a couple of minutes before.” Giacomin summed it up, “They won because they were all over us all the time.”

With the 4-3 victory, the Philadelphia Flyers became the first expansion team to eliminate an established team from the playoffs. “This win over an establishment team has given us great confidence,” said Flyers coach Freddie Shero. “We knew that New York has much more depth than Boston but that isn’t the whole story.”

Over the course of the seven games, another record was set – the teams accumulated 405 penalty minutes. In fact, “Broad Street Bullies” coach Freddie Shero felt that the turning point of the final game was when his Dave Schultz fought Dale Rolfe one-on-one along the boards about twelve minutes into the game. “We fought ‘em man to man. In other words, we didn’t jump ‘em from behind. We proved our class.” Philadelphia went on to defeat the Bruins 4-2 to take home their first of back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.

Additional Sources:

“It’s On to the Stanley Cup Finals As Flyers Turn Back Rangers, 4-3,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 May 1974, pp. 1-C and 2-C.
Mike Commito, Hockey 365: Daily Stories from the Ice (Toronto: Dundurn, 2018), kindle edition.