Saturday March 19th
Morenz Becomes NHL Scoring Leader
On this day, the year of our Lord 1932, Howie Morenz and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Montreal Maroons 6-4 in overtime. That’s right. Before 1942, the two teams would play a full 10 minute overtime, meaning no golden goal, and a situation like this where one team can win by more than one goal in overtime. Since there were restrictions due to World War 2, the overtime period was done away with completely, and remained this way until 1983.
Morenz scored a goal and three assists in the win, to give him 333 career points in his 9th year in the NHL, at the time, the most career points ever. Morenz would finish his career with 271 goals and 472 points in 550 games played, with 257 of his goals and 417 of his points as a member of the Canadiens. Morenz did play two seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks and one with the New York Rangers, before returning to the Canadiens in the 1936-37 season.
Morenz was traded to Chicago in the 1934 offseason, due to a lack of production in his last two years. However, the Montreal Canadiens were struggling to find success, and looking for answers, the owners re-hired head coach Cecil Hart, who would only take on the job if Morenz was re-acquired by the team, which he was. It was against Morenz’ former team, the Blackhawks, where his life ending injury would eventually take place.
Bill Durnan Ties Tiny Thompson
In the 1943-44 season, Bill Durnan won the final game of his rookie campaign, 6-1 versus the New York Rangers. It was Durnan’s 38th win, which tied him with Tiny Thompson for most wins by a goaltender in his rookie year. Durnan finished with a record of 38-5-7, as the Montreal Canadiens took the league by storm, finishing 25 points ahead of the Detroit Red Wings, who finished second.
Durnan was unique as a goaltender as he was ambidextrous. Not only was he as good at catching the puck with his right and left hand, but he also had unique goalie mitts, which allowed him to catch the puck with either hand, and switch his stick between the two.
Bill Durnan played just 7 seasons in the NHL, and won 6 Vezina Trophies in those years, his only loss coming in 1948, losing to Turk Broda of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Only Jacques Plante has won more Vezina Trophies with 7, and Durnan is tied with Dominik Hasek.
Big Bird Plays 1,000th Game
The Montreal Canadiens lost to the Winnipeg Jets 6-4 on March 19th 1986, but it was Larry Robinson’s 1,000th career game. The big defender was just the fourth Montreal Canadien to reach that milestone behind Jean Beliveau, Claude Provost and Henri Richard. Since then, only one player has played 1,000 games in a Canadiens uniform, Bob Gainey. Robinson played 1,202 games as a member of the Canadiens, behind just Henri Richard.
Since then a few players have gotten close to playing their 1,000th game in Montreal, but have not been able to accomplish it. Between 2000 and 2017, Andrei Markov played 980 games with the team before famously not being able to work out a deal with then General Manager Marc Bergevin. Tomas Plekanec played 1,001 NHL games, but played 17 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs after being traded in 2017-18, meaning he played 984 games as a Montreal Canadien.