On Hockey Night in Canada recently, one commentator said: “There’s nothing like Game Seven overtime.” He is right.
Game Seven overtime ends the season, terminating one team’s year with finality and fatality, the clearest definition of “sudden-death” overtime. It also puts an exclamation mark on victory (17 times) sending the winners — in a flash — from raising sticks to sipping champagne.
Only twice has it been in Game Seven. The authors were Pete Babando (1950) and Tony Leswick (1954), typically neither were previously widely known outside their hometowns, perhaps even outside their homes.
These were journeymen in the era when journeymen could be in the National Hockey League one day and delivering groceries the next. That solitary goal defined the careers of both Babando, born in Pennsylvania and raised in Northern Ontario, and Leswick, from Humboldt, Saskatchewan.
While only two players ever did this, there has never been a Stanley Cup-winning scorer like Pete Babando. In his rookie season with the Boston Bruins, Babando’s 23 goals were good enough to be runner-up for the Calder Trophy, and he added 19 the next season. Averaging 20 goals a year then was like averaging 30 now. Yet the Bruins dealt him to Detroit for the NHL’s best defenceman (Bill Quackenbush) because the Red Wings had defencemen and, in the words of general manager Jimmy Skinner: “We want the Stanley Cup.”
Babando, the scorer, was an instant flop. In 56 games, he had six goals and 12 points. In the playoffs, he spent most of the games on the bench and the fourth line, or in the press box. Then came Game Seven. After the New York Rangers went ahead 2-0, Babando scored. After 60 minutes, it was 3-3. The first overtime was scoreless. Eight minutes into the second, his fresh legs seldomly used, Babando was the game’s fastest player when his backhand beat Charlie Rayner for the Cup winner.
That ended the season, along with his one season in Detroit. He was dealt to Chicago in a nine-player trade, Babando played three more seasons, then kicked around hockey’s minor leagues for another 13. His 15 minutes of fame, his moment in the sun, became Stanley Cup history… equalled four years later by Tony Leswick, also with Detroit.
Nobody has won the Cup with a Game Seven overtime goal in two generations, 70 years. And players who were just Cup-winning goal scorers are as unusual as some of the goals. John Ferguson, Bob Kelly and Eddie Shack, all more famous for scoring with punches than pucks, are among them. So are forgettables Frantisek Kaberle, Ross Colton and Dave Bolland, but Mario Lemieux, Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are not.
Babando never saw the classic goal he scored. Nor did Leswick, who flipped the puck high towards the Montreal net and skated to the bench — he couldn’t believe he’d scored. Henri Richard’s second Cup winner was guided to infamy by his arm.
When the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers decide this year’s Cup, will the winning goal be scored by Connor McDavid, Alexander Barkov or a benign teammate? Will it be the culmination of a pretty passing play or a multi-player deflection?
And will it be in Game Seven overtime?
