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The 1972 Summit Series SUMMIT
PART 2: Clash of the Titans GAME 2: RIPOSTE
Sinden
and his staff studied the game film and discussed lineup changes.
Three pairs of defensemen would be used instead of five rotating.
Dryden would be replaced in nets by Tony Esposito. The
forward lines would also be shaken up. Sinden decided to match up
players with their NHL teammates as much as possible. Montreal's Serge
Savard would work alongside Lapointe. The Chicago Blackhawk's Bill White
would team up with Pat Stapleton, and Phil Esposito would be flanked by
Bruins' teammate Wayne Cashman. The only line that would remain
untouched was that of Ellis-Clarke-Henderson which had played together
very well. Just
prior to the start of Game 2 at Maple Leaf Gardens, Yvan Cournoyer and
Frank Mahovlich went to the rink early to contemplate on the forthcoming
game. Mahovlich puffed on a cigar and absently watched the gray smoke
curl toward the ceiling. A scene at the opposite end of the rink caught
his eye. The Progressive
Conservative party leader Robert Stanfield was making a photograph for a
campaign poster, posing in a Team Canada Jersey. "Damn
it," Mahovlich cursed. "We're not playing for the bloody
politicians, we're playing the bloody Red Army!" An
hour later, the arena began to fill. The spectators were all nervous.
Another defeat would be sheer disaster to national prestige. The
Canadians, having had the bitter taste of defeat, were better focused
for the game and ready to avenge the loss from two nights earlier. Twenty
minutes of hockey went into the record books and the score was still
0-0. Mikhailov noted that Team Canada was better disciplined: "A
hockey player can tell things from his opponents' appearance," he
later explained. "I remember looking into their eyes in Toronto and
seeing more fire and intensity." Eight
minutes into the second period, an official signaled for a delayed
penalty call after Petrov knocked down Esposito in front of the Soviet
net. As he slowly rose to
his skates, Cashman flung the puck on net. It somehow went untouched
through a screen to Esposito, who went top shelf over the lunging
Tretiak. 1-0 Canada. Early
in the third period, the Canadians extended their lead. At 1:19, the
home team received a power play after Valery Kharlamov received a
10-minute misconduct for shoving an official. After an ensuing face-off,
Brad Park started the play behind his own goal. With a head of steam, he
broke out into the neutral zone, flanked by Cournoyer. As the two
Canadians approached the Soviet blue line, Park launched a perfect pass
to his teammate. The timing caught defensemen Ragulin and Vladimir
Lutchenko by surprise. The French Canadian deftly skated around them and
fired a shot past Tretiak. Though
shaken, the Soviets did not surrender. Four minutes after Cournoyer's
tally, Zimin worked a give-and-go pass with defenseman Evgeny Paladiev.
Zimin's slap shot whistled past the Canadian net and rebounded off the
boards to defenseman Yuri Liapkin who promptly beat Tony Esposito stick
side. The
Gardens crowd fell silent, dreading another Soviet avalanche of goals as
in game one. Their anxiety increased 21 seconds later after Stapleton
was called for hooking. The Russians smelled blood and closed in for the
kill. Defenders
Lapointe, White, Esposito, and Peter Mahovlich stayed in a tight box
formation and let the Soviets wheel and deal the puck around the
perimeter. At length, the Russians attacked the box, but Lapointe got
his stick on the biscuit and almost cleared the zone. Desperately,
Esposito gambled and moved out of position toward the puck, just getting
there just before the Russian point man and pushing it out with a
backhanded slash. At
the same time, Peter Mahovlich broke out of his zone and collected the
puck as it slid down ice along the boards. He skated diagonally toward
the center of the rink and found himself one-on-one with Paladiev.
Crossing the blue line, Mahovlich wound up to fire a slap shot, but at
the last second letting up. The defenseman froze for an instant, long
enough for the Canadian to swerve around him. Closing in on Tretiak, he
switched the puck to his backhand and neatly slid it into the net as the
Russian goalie dove with stacked pads. The
short-handed goal at 6:47 nearly blew the roof off the arena.
Team Canada bench spilled onto the ice and mobbed Mahovlich. The
scales now definitely tipped in Canada's favor. The
coup de grace was administered two minutes later at 8:59. Forechecking
with even more ferocity, Stan Mikita outmuscled his opponent behind the
Soviet net and grabbed the puck. Moving to the left side, he saw Frank
Mahovlich coming down the slot area. The pass was right on the tape and
Mahovlich slammed it into the top left corner. 4-1, Canada. No
more goals were scored and Canada claimed its largest margin of victory
in the series. Back
in the dressing room, the Canadian players whooped it up as though they
had won the Stanley Cup, but Sinden was still frugal with his passions.
"Now look," he announced to the noisy group, "enjoy the
victory, but don't gloat over it. We've got six games to play. Enjoy it
tonight, savor it, but we've got a lotta games to play!" In
defeat, the Soviet coaches were as ungracious as Team Canada was after
Game 1. Bobrov accused the two referees, Americans Frank Larsen and
Steve Dowling, of letting the Canadians get away with murder, in
particular, the rough play of Wayne Cashman. Andrei Starovoitov, head of
the Soviet Hockey Federation,
was so outraged that after the game he burst into the officials' room,
kicked over chairs, and screamed: "The American referees let the
Canadian players perform like a bunch of barbarians!"
1972 Summit Series Part
2 - The Clash Of The Titans |
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