Remembering the 1975 New Year's Eve classic
Central Red Army goalie was star of game in 1975 best-vs.-best matchup with Habs
This week, we're looking back at four classic Canadiens games from the holiday period. Today: No. 1.
It has been called the greatest game ever, which seems like an exaggeration when you consider it was an exhibition that ended 3-3.
But all who were in the Montreal Forum on Dec. 31, 1975, left the rink knowing they had witnessed something special.
Three years after the historic Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, hockey's cold war resumed with a matchup between the two best club teams in the world — the Canadiens and Soviet powerhouse Central Red Army.
The Canadiens were in first place in the National Hockey League and were on their way to winning the first of four consecutive Stanley Cups. The roster featured nine players who would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame — Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Steve Shutt, Bob Gainey, Jacques Lemaire, the Big Three of Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson on defence and goaltender Ken Dryden.
Red Army had many of the players who represented the Soviet Union in the Summit Series, including Vladimir Kharlamov, Boris Mikhailov and goalie Vladislav Tretiak. Red Army won 32 Soviet championships in 46 years, including one run of 13 consecutive titles.
It was the hottest ticket in Montreal and the standing-room-only crowd was settling in for an entertaining evening when the Canadiens took an early 2-0 lead on goals by Shutt and Yvon Lambert, while Cournoyer would make it 3-1 in the second period. But the Soviets would beat Dryden twice in the second period and once in third to earn a the tie.
The key to the game was goaltending. On a night when the Canadiens outshot the visitors 3813, Tretiak was outstanding and Dryden wasn't.
When colleague Red Fisher looked back at the most memorable games in Canadiens history in 2014, he had this to say about Dryden's performance:
“If he had played like the Dryden who had gone into the game with a remarkable 1.79 goals-against average in his first 31 games of the NHL season, he would not have been beat three times on 13 shots — two of the goals coming early and late from the Red Army's three second-period shots. If he had been vintage Dryden, he would not have allowed the only goal of the third period, during which the Canadiens outshot the Soviets 16-6 in a mismatch that had them holding a 2-0 lead fewer than eight minutes into the game and a 3-1 lead midway through the second period.”
There was disappointment in the Canadiens' room and Peter Mahovlich felt he had to apologize to the Montreal faithful for not delivering a victory.
But head coach Scotty Bowman took the long view.
Here's how Dryden recorded the coach's view on the game in his book Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other:
“We played a great game,” Scotty says, employing language he rarely uses. “We played a dominating game, and an exciting game, and in an atmosphere that was just electric.
“The game gave us an awful lot of confidence. The team was building up an awful lot of confidence. To play a game like that against a team as good as the Russians were, that was pretty dominating.”
To which Dryden added: “I remember everyone playing at the top of their game. Except me. It is my biggest regret in hockey.”