What happened on April 5 in the history of the New York Rangers
On this date in 1970, the New York Rangers played the craziest game in their history. They beat the Detroit Red Wings 9-5 to make the playoffs, eliminating the Montreal Canadiens. In an effort to score as many goals as possible, the Rangers set a franchise record with 65 shots on goal and even pulled their goalie in the third period with a six goal lead.
The reason was that the Rangers had to win and if Montreal lost and they finished in a tie for fourth place, they had to finish with more goals than the Canadiens.
Here is how it stood going into the last day of the season. If the Rangers won and Montreal lost, they would finished tied with 92 points. At that point the tiebreaker was the number of goals scored The Rangers went into their game with Detroit with 237 goals. Montreal had 242 goals. The Rangers knew that they had to score at least five goals, but they would then have to rely on the Chicago Black Hawks to shut out the Habs.
So the Blueshirts threw everything they had at the Detroit goal, scoring nine times, thrilling the sold out Madison Square Garden crowd. They even pulled goalie Ed Giacomin with a 9-3 lead in the third period in an effort to score more goals. That didn’t work as the Red Wings scored twice into the empty net. Montreal fans complained that the Red Wings sat out some of their best players as they had clinched a playoff spot the day before and had been up into the wee hours celebrating.
It didn’t help the hung over Red Wings that the game was a matinee and on national television. As a result, Montreal knew that the Rangers had won and had scored nine goals in the process. The Canadiens took the ice that night in Chicago knowing that they had to win, or lose and score five goals. When they fell behind 3-1 in the second period, they forgot about trying to win and just tried to score those five goals.
With nine minutes left the game and trailing 5-2, the Habs pulled goalie Rogie Vachon in an attempt to get the three goals they needed. It didn’t work as the Black Hawks scored five times for the 10-2 win.
April 5, 1970 goes down as one of the wildest finishes to any NHL season. It was the first time Montreal missed the playoffs in 22 years and until the 2015-16 season, it was the last time there had been no Canadian teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs
Today’s birthdays
There have been 18 NHL players born on April 5 and only one was a former Ranger.
John Hanna was born on this date in 1935 in Sydney, Nova Scotia. He was a regular on the Rangers’ blue line for three years from 1958 to 1961. He also played for Montreal and Philadelphia before ending his career in the WHA with the Cleveland Crusaders.
The numbers
The Rangers have a losing record on April 5 in both regular season and playoff matches.
Games: 22
Regulation wins: 7
Regulation losses: 10
Ties: 1
Overtime wins: 2
Shootout losses: 2
Points percentage: .477
Playoffs games: 12
Wins: 5
Losses: 6
Overtime losses: 1
Winning percentage: 42%