This Date in Hockey History – March 24, 1953 – Sawchuk Says Nay, Scorers Say Yay

The reigning Stanley Cup champions of 1952, the Detroit Red Wings, were hoping to raise the silver chalice again in 1953. To do that they would have to first defeat the Boston Bruins in the semi-finals, which began March 24, at Olympia Stadium. When the game was over Sawchuk tied an NHL record with his third consecutive playoff shutout and the Red Wings may have been feeling a bit overconfident.

“Goalie Terry Sawchuk of Detroit was brilliant, starting out this year’s playoffs in the same manner that he started last spring—with a shutout—but the Toronto Maple Leafs were the victims in 1952,” wrote Lloyd Northard.

The shots on goal at the end of the game were heavily in favor of the Red Wings, who peppered Bruins goaltender Jim Henry with 43 shots, as opposed to the 27 that Sawchuk saw. And according to Marshall Dann of The Detroit Free Press there were “less than a half-dozen of which required extra effort.”

For Sawchuk it was not only his third consecutive playoff shutout, but it was his fifth playoff shutout since the beginning of the 1952 playoffs in which the Red Wings garnered the Stanley Cup in just eight games. The 1952 playoffs, in addition to the previously mentioned shutout in the first game against the Maple Leafs, found Sawchuk with a 1-0 shutout, also against the Leafs in the semifinals, and then two 3-0 blankings against the Montreal Canadiens in the Final—all of which took place on home ice.

And while Sawchuk was denying the Bruins, his teammates were putting pucks in the net and goals on the scoresheet—a total of seven.

“It was ‘no contest’ almost from the start. [Marty] Pavelich struck after 2:39 of play, and he and [Ted] Lindsay made it 3 to 0 before the game was 10 minutes along,” wrote Dann.

Pavelich had two of those three goals in the first period, with his second coming just 31 seconds after Lindsay’s which was notched at 8:45. The middle stanza saw Alex Delvecchio make it 4-0 and then, showing no mercy, the Wings added three more markers in the third from Metro Prystai, Johnny Wilson, and Lindsay with his second. Meanwhile Gordie Howe assisted on two of the goals.

“Three’s one way of looking at it, though. The old pros just took charge. Marty Pavelich, Ted Lindsay and Gordie Howe really turned in a great performance,” Wings general manager Jack Adams was quoted. “Actually we just coasted after Marty scored his second goal and put us ahead, 3 to 0.”

In truth the Red Wings had had their way with the Bruins throughout the regular season garnering a 10-2-2 record in their 14 tilts. And it looked like they were going to continue that into the playoffs.

While the Red Wings took that first game in a deciding fashion, it was likely that the embarrassment the Bruins experienced from that game gave them motivation moving forward. The second game, played on March 26, saw the Bruins split the series when they beat the Wings 5-3 at Olympia. The games shifted to Boston for the third and fourth games in which the Bruins took game three 2-1 in overtime and game four 6-2. Game five was played back in Detroit and saw the Wings get the 6-4 win, but Boston ended the Wings dreams of a consecutive Cup when they finished the series with the game six winning score of 4-2. The Bruins fell to the Canadiens in a seven-game final.

The Red Wings would hoist the Cup again in 1954 and 1955, but then experienced a 42-year drought solved only after the Red Wings added the Russian Five.

Additional Sources:

• Lloyd Northard, “Wings Take Up Right Where They Left Off,” The Petoskey Evening News (Petoskey, Michigan), Wednesday, March 25, 1953, p. 7.
• Bob Latshaw, “Wings, Bruins Both Surprised,” The Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), Wednesday, March 25, 1953, p. 23.
• Marshall Dann, “Lindsay, Pavelich Get 2 Each,” The Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), Wednesday, March 25, 1953, pp. 23-24.