The dramatic tale of Lorne ‘Chabotsky’

Welcome to another edition of Blueshirts Briefs, a series profiling individuals who worked a short shift for the New York Rangers.

Lorne Chabot played just 81 regular-season games and eight playoff matches between the pipes for the New York Rangers, but his time on Broadway featured plenty of drama.

Born in Montreal in 1900, Chabot was 26 years old when the Rangers’ Conn Smythe signed him as a free agent. By then, Chabot already had served in World War I, been a Canadian Mountie, and backstopped the Port Arthur Bearcats to back-to-back Allan Cup championships in Canada’s top amateur league.

Chabot took over for the Rangers’ original goaltender, Hal Winkler, eight games into the 1926-27 season and led the Blueshirts to a first-place finish in the American Division, posting a 22-9-5 record, 1.51 goals-against average, and 10 shutouts.

With Chabot entrenched as the starter, Winkler was traded to the Boston Bruins on January 17, 1927, for $5,000.

Ironically, the Bruins and Rangers met in the Semifinals later that season.

Chabot and Winkler posted shutouts in the opening game at Boston Arena, but the Bruins won the second match, 3-1 at Madison Square Garden III. Boston advanced to the Finals by virtue of “total goals” — a new format adopted by the league in October 1926 when it split teams into divisions, the Canadian and the American.

(If you’re wondering, right-winger Bill Cook, who led the NHL in 1926-27 with 33 goals and 37 points, scored the Rangers’ lone goal of the series. Defenseman Clarence Abel had the team’s only other point.)

Regardless of the loss to Boston, Chabot had a wonderful rookie season.

His only complaint came when Rangers’ publicists Johnny Bruno and Dick Blythe changed the goalie’s name to “Leopold Chabotsky” on press releases and scoresheets to increase the team’s popularity with New York’s immense Jewish population. The French-Canadian Chabot rejected the name-change faster than an uncontested Zdeno Chara slap shot.

Chabot’s second season proved even more drama-filled.

First, he reportedly was encouraged by gamblers to “throw” a game but immediately reported the exchange to general manager and head coach Lester Patrick, and Chabot never saw the gamblers nor was propositioned again.

Then, after playing all 44 matches for the Rangers, guiding them to the Finals against the Montreal Maroons, and losing the first game, he was hit in the eye by a shot from Montreal’s Nels Stewart late in the second period of a scoreless game.

The maskless Chabot bled all over the ice and was rushed to Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital. Although officials decided to end the middle stanza to take an extended break before the third, Chabot couldn’t return.

The Rangers did not have a backup goaltender on the roster, so Patrick asked if Ottawa Senators’ star backstop Alec Connell, who was in the stands, could spell Chabot. Connell led the NHL with 30 wins that season. Not surprisingly, the Maroons “laughed out loud” at Patrick’s request. Thus, the 44-year-old Patrick, a defenseman as a player, was forced to come off the bench and man the crease himself.

In the third period, Bill Cook opened the scoring but Stewart, of all players, struck again and tied the game with just over five minutes left in regulation. Rangers’ center Frank Boucher — whose No. 7 still hasn’t been retired by the Blueshirts despite his Hall of Fame status and 34 years with them as a player, coach, and GM —  scored just over seven minutes into overtime.

The Rangers learned afterward that Chabot was lost for the series, so they received goalie Joe Miller on loan from the New York Americans.  Miller lost the third game, but won the next two, leading the Blueshirts to their first Stanley Cup championship, one of three they’d win by the end of the 1939-40 season.

Chabot wasn’t around for the other two Rangers’ Cup wins. Fearing Chabot wouldn’t fully recover from his eye injury, the Blueshirts traded him and $10,000 in October 1928 to the Toronto Maple Leafs for John Ross Roach.

The swap of 28-year-old goaltenders worked out for both clubs.

Chabot spent five seasons in Toronto. In the 1932 playoffs, he went 5-1 with a 2.05 goals-against average and beat the Rangers in the Finals. In 1930, he led the NHL with six shutouts and, in 1933, led all backstops by playing the full 48-game slate.

Ross Roach played in every game for the Rangers from 1928-29 through 1931-32, and guided them to the Finals in 1929 (losing to Boston despite a 0.97 GAA and three shutouts in the playoffs) and in 1932 (allowing 27 goals in a three-game sweep by Toronto).

Chabot was traded to the Canadiens for George Hainsworth before the 1933-34 season and finished second in the NHL in wins (21) and shutouts (8).

The following October, he was sent to the Chicago Black Hawks in a multi-player deal and had arguably his best season, earning his only Vezina Trophy and first-team All-Star selection. He also played in all 48 games, posted an NHL-best 1.80 GAA, and became the first hockey player featured on the cover of Time magazine (February 13).

In his middle 30s, Chabot was on top of his game. But his stay was short-lived.

Prior to the 1935-36 season, Chabot suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Mike Karakas. After refusing to accept an assignment to the minors, he was traded to the Montreal Maroons for cash. He played 16 games and in October 1936 was shipped to the New York Americans, also for cash. Chabot played six games for the Americans, his last matches in the NHL.

Chabot died of kidney disease on October 10, 1946, just five days after his 46th birthday. He was also said to have severe arthritis, keeping him bedridden over his final months.