The Big Bad Bruins

1998

When a promising 21-year-old left winger named John Bucyk was traded from the Detroit Red Wings to the Boston Bruins for goalie Terry Sawchuk in July 1957, Bucyk said goodbye to a powerful club fresh off three Stanley Cup championships in five years, a team led by NHL greats Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay.

And Bucyk found a situation that would get a whole lot worse before it got better.

In Bucyk's second season as a Bruin, the team would edge above .500 at 32-29-9 -- but it was the only winning team in his first 10 years in Boston.

Worse, while the B's actually reached the Stanley Cup final in his first season -- losing the Cup to Montreal in six games -- and then were eliminated by Toronto in the first round in seven games the next spring, they failed to reach the postseason the next eight years.

In the six-team NHL, with four teams qualifying for the Cup chase, such failure wasn't easy -- nor was it much fun.

"When I first came here, things weren't that bad," said Bucyk. "We made the playoffs a couple of years. But then for eight consecutive years, we never even made the playoffs. Things were kind of bleak.

"But the thing was, we filled the building up anyway. People still came and cheered us on. And we tried. We had a lot of fun. We've always had that, that atmosphere here with the Bruins, where we're one big happy family and the guys have a lot of fun.

"We stuck together whether we won or lost. We lost a lot. But you could just see the wheel was going to turn. And then it did. That was one of the reasons I never wanted to be traded, for the simple fact that I was so happy playing in Boston and knew that eventually, we were going to get stronger and stronger. And we did."

Teen angel

Bucyk had good reason for believing early in the 1960s that the Bruins fortunes would improve before long. That's because he'd seen Bobby Orr play.

In 1962, the B's discovered the 14-year-old Orr playing midget hockey in Parry Sound, Ontario. They arranged for him to join Oshawa of the Ontario junior league, where he delivered three dominant seasons. Many believed Orr could have played effectively in the NHL at 14, but under NHL rules, a player had to be 18.

So the B's struggled those three years, hopelessly stuck at or near the bottom of the standings, awaiting the arrival of the savior who would change everything on Causeway Street.

"Before he arrived here, we had days off in Toronto a couple of times, and I was fortunate enough to go and watch him play when he was in juniors with Oshawa," said Bucyk. "I knew right away something was going to happen with that kid. He was just outstanding, so good that we could hardly wait for him to get up. I didn't know he was going to be the great superstar that he was, but I knew he was going to be a star, a big factor on our team."

Rookie can play

Joining the Bruins in 1966, Orr turned in a terrific rookie season in 1966-67, posting 13-28-41 totals and easily winning the Calder Trophy. Alas, not even Orr could lift the Bruins out of the NHL cellar, as they went just 17-43-10 -- 29 points out of a playoff berth.

But Orr's impact was immediate and immense. When New York Ranger Harry Howell won the '67 Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman, he remarked, "I'm glad I won it now, because it's going to belong to Orr from now on."

How right he was: Orr won the Norris the next eight years.

"He pretty well took over as soon as he got here," said Bucyk. "He was the backbone of the club. Bobby pretty well controlled everything from the back, he made the power play work, he killed penalties, he spent so much time on the ice and did so many things well."

Orr's rookie season was the final year of the six-team NHL, as the league doubled in size for the 1967-68 campaign. The B's left their losing ways behind, too, as they made the playoffs for the first time since 1959. They wouldn't miss again until 1997.

In 1968-69, the B's finished second in the East Division. Their 100 points trailed only division winner Montreal. The Bruins swept Toronto in the quarterfinals, but then dropped a six-game semifinal matchup to the Habs, who then brushed aside St. Louis for the Cup. The B's went home that summer believing the Cup could have been theirs that season; a year later, it was.

In 1969-70, Orr became the first defenseman to win the scoring title, putting up incredible 33-87-120 totals. The B's tied Chicago with 99 points in the regular season, then found themselves in a rugged 2-2 tie with the Rangers after four games of the playoff quarters.

But the Bruins then awakened to win their next 10 playoff games -- meaning a six-game defeat of New York, then sweeps of Chicago and St. Louis -- to capture their first Stanley Cup in 29 years.

The final image of the series became one of the most famous sports photographs ever made: Orr flying past the St. Louis goal after taking teammate Derek Sanderson's pass and beating Blues goalie Glenn Hall for the Cup-winning score.

Wild about Harry

The B's were coached to that first Cup by 36-year-old Harry Sinden, a former defenseman on the Canadian Olympic team.

"He was very sharp, very alert," said Bucyk. "He knew when to give you a little bit of heck, and when to pat you on the back. That's something now a lot of coaches don't do anymore. The game has changed so much. How does a coach that's making $500,000 say something to a guy who's making $5 million? They turn around and give you a dirty look, like, 'Who are you to yell at me?'

"It's all different now. In those days, we never made much money. We never cared about money. We just wanted to be on the team and play. We didn't even know what the wages were, we had no idea what the other players were making. So it was easier for a coach to coach and a GM to manage."

It was former Bruins great center Milt Schmidt who, as GM of the Bruins in 1967, engineered one of the all-time great trades, sending defenseman Gilles Marotte, center Pit Martin and goalie Jack Norris to Chicago for Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield -- all keys to the two Cup winners.

Club for ages

The swashbuckling, fun-loving Bruins of 1970-71 enjoyed one of the greatest campaigns in the history of team sports. They ran away with the regular-season title, compiling a 57-14-7 record, scoring 108 more goals than next-best team. The incredible Bruins scoring machine included the top four scorers in the NHL, all with more than 100 points: Esposito (76-76-152), Orr (37-102-139), Bucyk (51-65-116) and Ken Hodge (43-62-105). Bobby Hull and Norm Ullman ranked next in the league scoring parade, but then came Bruins Wayne Cashman (21-58-79) and Johnny (Pie) McKenzie (31-47-78) -- meaning the B's had six of hockey's top eight scorers.

The Bruins were expected to steamroll to a second successive Cup. But a young Montreal goalie from Cornell named Ken Dryden -- he had just six games of big-league experience -- was brilliant, as the Canadiens sprung a stunning seven-game, first-round upset of the B's. Ironically, the Bruins owned the rights to Dryden, but they traded those rights to Montreal in 1964 for a pair of nobodies.

In 1971-72, the Bruins remained atop the league with a 54-13-11 record -- with Esposito and Orr leading all scorers for the third straight year -- and this time the B's didn't let the Cup escape them: They lost only three games in knocking off Toronto, St. Louis and New York.

In September 1972, Sinden-coached Team Canada faced the best of the Soviet Union in what was expected to be an easy win for the NHL players. The hockey world was stunned to learn that the Russians were every bit the equal of the Canadians, who had just a win and a tie in the first four games of the series in Canada. But Sinden's team took 3-of-4 in Moscow to earn the narrowest of wins in the historic and emotional series.

Falling short

The B's of 1971-72 were again loaded, totaling 107 regular-season points. But they were ousted quickly in the playoffs, knocked out in five games by the New York Rangers. The legacy of those great teams: They won twice, but it should have been more.

"We won it in '70, but I thought we were stronger in '71," said Bucyk. "We ran into some hot goaltending, and it cost us. We lost out again in '73, and we should have won it that year, too."

The B's also just missed in '74, advancing to the final with wins against Toronto and Chicago. But Orr & Co. were done in in the final by the new bully of the NHL, the Philadelphia Flyers, who, behind goalie Bernie Parent and top center Bobby Clarke, became the first expansion team to win the Cup.

Not long after, the greatest Bruins team ever assembled began to come apart. Sanderson and goalie Gerry Cheevers headed off to the World Hockey Association. Early in 1975-76, Esposito was dealt to the Rangers in a five-layer deal that delivered Jean Ratelle and Brad Park to Boston.

In 1974-75, Orr piled up 135 points, 46 of them goals. But the next year, he played only 10 games before reinjuring his knee in December. And in June of '76, Orr, a free agent, signed a five-year, $3 million deal with the Chicago Black Hawks. He had been deceived by agent Alan Eagleson, led to believe the B's didn't want him -- when in fact they had offered him 18.5 percent ownership of the team to stay.

But Orr was just about done anyway. He missed all of the 1977-78 season after undergoing his sixth knee operation and played just six games the following year before quitting. He was 30 years old.

"It was just so unfortunate that he had the knee injuries," said Bucyk. "He played with a lot of injuries, he played hurting when he shouldn't have played. But he felt he could help the team. And of course, even when he was injured, he was still the best player on the ice. If he hadn't done that, if he hadn't played hurt so much, he probably would have lasted longer."

As it was, Orr may have had more impact on the NHL style of play than any other player.

"All Bobby did," Esposito once noted, "was change the face of hockey all by himself."

(Information included in this series came from interviews and numerous published sources, notably "Boston Bruins, Celebrating 75 Years," by Clark Booth. Also helpful were "The Complete Encyclopedia of Hockey," edited by Zander Hollander; NHL publication "The Six-Team Era"; "The Complete History of the Boston Bruins" CD-ROM.)

DEFINING MOMENT: Bobby Orr takes flight after scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime against the St. Louis Blues in Game 4 on Mothers' Day, May 10, 1970. Herald file photo by Ray Lussier

ORR AND ESPO: Bobby Orr celebrates with Phil Esposito after the Bruins clinched the East Division championship on March 22, 1971. Herald file photo

SOME SUPER HARDWARE: Standout Bobby Orr poses with the Norris and Hart trophies for being the NHL's top defenseman and MVP. The Bruins superstar won both awards in the same year three times. Photo courtesy New England Sports Museum

OLD SCAR FACE: Gerry Cheevers was a stalwart during the Big, Bad Bruins days of the '70s. Herald file photo

THE YOUNG CHEIF: Johnny Bucyk struggled through 10 seasons with the Bruins before Bobby Orr came along to save the day. Herald file photo.