1921-22
The NHL would remain unchanged from the previous season but there were big happenings in the west. The Western Canada Hockey League was formed and became the second major professional league in Western Canada. They would play an interlocking schedule with the PCHA but for FHM purposes they are combined into a single league with two divisions. The three existing PCHA clubs will comprise one division while the other will be composed of four new teams in the Calgary Tigers, Edmonton Eskimos, Regina Capitals and Saskatoon Sheiks.
The WCHA will also use an expanded playoff format with a cross-over semi-final where the top team in the PCHA will face the second-place team in the WCHL and vice versa. The two winners would play in the Western final to determine who plays for the Stanley Cup. All series will be two-game total goals.
The NHL season saw the Montreal Canadiens jump out to a quick lead thanks to the trio of Babe Dye, Bill Cook and George Hay. Those three bumped Newsy Lalonde and Corb Denneny to the second line and had the Canadiens flying during the early portions of the season but a February injury to Hay slowed their pace. That allowed Ottawa, which had meandered through the month of December and early January at the .500 mark, a chance to overtake the Habs for top spot once they heated up. And Ottawa was boiling hot in the dead of winter, finishing their season with 13 consecutive victories to finish in first place for the fifth year in a row.
Like Montreal, it was a changing of the guard in Ottawa. Cy Denneny, Corb's brother, was still very effective as was George Hainsworth in the Ottawa net but the stars of the team were a trio of 20-year-olds in Howie Morenz, Frank Boucher and Aurel Joliat. Joliat smashed the old record set by Cy Denneny for goals in a season by 9, scoring an amazing 32 times in just 24 games.
The Toronto St. Patrick's and Hamilton Tigers never had a chance at a playoff berth although both did have some talent of their own. Veterans Howie Meeking and Jack Darragh were the leaders in the Steel City while in Toronto Mickey MacKay had a down year by his standards but was still the top Toronto player.
In the NHL playoff series, once more a two-game total goal affair, the clubs battled to a 2-2 draw in the nation's capital in the opener. Young King Clancy and Howie Morenz scored for the Senators while Nels Stewart and Bill Cook replied for Montreal.
The hometown Habs struck first in game two with Joe Simpson scoring in the opening minute and Punch Broadbent increasing the lead to 2-0 before Ottawa finally got on the scoreboard when Bernie Morris notched a power play goal in the closing seconds of the opening frame. The second period was all Montreal as Newsy Lalone, Nels Stewart, Babe Dye and Syl Mantha also scored within the first ten minutes of the middle frame. Ottawa would get one goal back in the third but that was a close as they would get and Montreal took the game 6-2 and the series by an 8-4 count sending the Canadiens back to the Stanley Cup finals for the fourth time but first as a member of the NHL.
WESTERN CANADA HOCKEY LEAGUE
Jack Adams scored 19 goals and tied Regina's Emory Sparrow for the scoring lead to help the Seattle Metropolitans finish with the best record in the PCHA. It was Sparrow's Capitals that owned the best record overall in the loop, with Regina going 18-5-1 to narrowly nip provincial rival Saskatoon for top spot in the WCHL.
Regina would face defending PCHA champion Vancouver in the semi-finals and the Capitals secret weapon was a 21-year-old goaltender by the name of John Ross Roach. Roach had played a few games for the 227th Battalion in the NHA as a 16-year-old when he lied about his age to get into the Canadian military during the war. He was eventually discovered and removed from the army but did spend the last couple of years playing junior hockey before catching on with Regina. Roach was outstanding all season and set a league record for shutouts with 5, which he co-established with Red McCusker of Saskatoon this season.
Roach would earn another shutout in the series opener as the Capitals blanked Vancouver 3-0. He was not quite as sharp in game two as the Millionaires won 4-3 but was good enough to help Regina advance on aggregate goals. The other series saw Saskatoon win 1-0 over Seattle in their series opener as McCusker would also pitch a shutout in the opener. Seattle would turn the tables in the second game, blanking the Sheiks 2-0 to narrowly win the series by a 2-1 count.
Regina was no match for the experienced Metropolitans in the Western Final as Seattle took the opener 1-0 in a game that Roach made much closer than it should have been. The second game was a 3-2 Seattle win as Red Dutton assisted on all 3 Metropolitan goals. Seattle won the series 4-2 and would be looking to duplicate its showing of two years ago when the Metropolitans upset the NHL champ to win the Stanley Cup.
STANLEY CUP
The 1922 Stanley Cup final would be the first to feature two teams that had lifted the Cup in the past. Seattle won its lone title two years ago by beating Ottawa while Montreal had won each of the first three Stanley Cups after the NHA and PCHA partnered up to play a title series beginning in 1913-14.
The best-of-five series would open in Montreal with the hosts quickly looking to make a statement that they were not impressed with the Metropolitans. Barney Stanley gave Montreal a quick lead just 1:06 into the series opener and less than two minutes later Joe Simpson made it 2-0. George Hay would score a short time later and before the series was nine minutes old the Canadiens led 3-0. Montreal would add another goal in the middle period when Babe Dye found the back of the net. Seattle did score twice in the third period to make it respectable, but the final score was 4-2 giving the Canadiens the series opener.
It was a much different Seattle club two nights later as the Metropolitans were the ones on a mission to start the second game. Bill Holmes opened the scoring to give Seattle its first lead of the series at the 8-minute mark of game two and in the next three minutes Alf Skinner scored twice and Jim Riley once to put Seattle up 4-0. Skinner would complete the hat trick in the second period and the Metropolitans would even the series with a convincing 7-3 victory.
The series then shifted to Seattle but the break to travel across the country did not slow the Metropolitans offense down as Skinner, Phil Stevens and Jack Adams gave Seattle a 3-0 lead after twenty minutes of game three. Babe Dye scored two early in the second frame to bring the Habs to within a goal, but Gordon McFarlane put Seattle up 4-2 after forty minutes. Jack Adams, with his second of the game, and Clem Loughlin gave the Metropolitans some breathing room as the third period hit the midway point. Montreal staged a furious comeback, getting goals from Corb Denneny, Joe Simpson and Bill Cook but the Habs could not get the equalizer and fell 6-5.
Bill Cook was the story of game four as the Canadiens needed a win to stay alive. Cook scored twice in the first period and set up second period goals from Babe Dye and Nels Stewart to lead Montreal to a 6-4 victory and force a deciding fifth game.
Newsy Lalonde seems to have slowed down substantially at the age of 33, scoring just 4 times this season after getting 17 goals the previous year. The Canadiens all-time leading scorer proved he had a little something left in the tank as Lalonde came up with his biggest game of the season. He scored twice and set up Punch Broadbent as Montreal took a 3-1 lead after two periods. When Jack Adams scored his second of the game to bring Seattle to within one, it was Lalonde who once again stepped up, collecting his fourth point of the game by setting up Nels Stewart. Adams would get his hat trick but Stewart and Dave Ritchie replied for the Canadiens who went on to win game five by a 6-3 score and win their fourth Stanley Cup.
21-
1922-23
On the ice the Ottawa Senators had been extremely successful, but off the ice it was another story. The clubs had financial troubles and as a result was forced to sell a number of players. Defenseman King Clancy and veteran forward Cy Denneny were sold to the Toronto St. Patrick's. There had been talk that scoring champ Aurel Joliat would also need to be sold but the Senators avoided that move by getting Frank Foyston, who began his career on the west coast, to accept a transfer to the Vancouver Maroons.
The Vancouver Maroons were not a new team in the Western League. Instead, it was simply a name change for the Vancouver Millionaires. Victoria also abandoned the moniker Aristocrats to become the Victoria Cougars. There were no new franchises or relocations for either league although some of the western clubs were facing financial peril. Ottawa seemed to be financially secure for at least the near future after the player sales but in the NHL there were worries about the future of the woeful Hamilton club, including talks of it being moved to an American city.
An interesting note is that this season marked the first broadcast of an NHL game as on February 14, CFCA, the radio station of the Toronto Daily Star newspaper broadcast the third period of the St. Patrick's game with the visiting Montreal Canadiens.
The Ottawa Senators clearly had enough talent to withstand the loss of the players that were sold off. Ottawa began the season with five consecutive victories and finished in what is becoming an all too familiar place - at the top of the NHL regular season standings. Youngsters Howie Morenz and Aurel Joliat along with 32-year-old Bernie Morris took care of the offense and George Hainsworth was once more the top goaltender in the NHL.
Montreal finished second, holding off a much-improved Toronto St. Patrick's squad for the second playoff berth. The defending Stanley Cup champions could not quite match Ottawa's offensive depth, but Babe Dye and Bill Cook were a good one-two punch. Second year man Alex Connell looked sharp in the Habs cage. Toronto had a little more offense than Montreal led by veteran Duke Keats, who led the loop in scoring after coming over from Hamilton during the winter. The fourth place Tigers had Joe Malone but little else and once more finished well behind the other three teams.
The first game of the playoffs was a tight battle for two periods with visiting Montreal clinging to a 4-3 lead, but Ottawa exploded for three unanswered goals in the final twenty minutes to claim a 6-4 victory. Bernie Morris scored three times and added an assist for the Senators with Howie Morenz chipping in with two goals of his own.
Montreal led 2-1 after the first period of game two but a pair of second period goals from Harold Darragh and Morenz gave the Senators the lead in the game and breathing room in the series. The final score would be 5-3 giving Ottawa a series win by an 11-7 score.
The Western loop saw a pair of dominant teams in the Calgary Tigers of the WCHL and the Victoria Cougars of the PCHA. However, both had their troubles in the opening round of the playoffs. The Tigers dominated the Saskatoon Crescents 5-1 in their opener but lost the series after being blasted 6-0 in the second game. Victoria had its troubles too as the PCHA leaders fell 2-1 to Edmonton in the series opener but managed to pull out a 2-0 win in game two after it went to overtime. The series was tied 2-2 in total goals after regulation necessitating the first overtime ever needed for a two-game total goal series. Hib Milks was the hero for the Cougars, notching the series winner 13 minutes into the extra period.
The western final was a best-of-five this time around and the Cougars had little trouble, earning a sweep of Saskatoon to send Victoria to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since the spring of 1918. Harry Watson and Hib Milks each had three points in a 4-2 Victoria win in the series opener. Watson added two points and Bill Laird, who was named top goalie in the league, made 21 saves for the shutout in a 2-0 win for Victoria in the second game and the sweep was completed with a 4-1 triumph in game three. The Cougars completed the sweep despite the fact that Harry Oliver, who led the league in scoring and was named MVP, did not pick up a single point for Victoria in the series.
STANLEY CUP
This time around the Stanley Cup would be a best of three series with the Ottawa Senators on a quest to join the Montreal Canadiens as four-time winners of the cup. One of the Senators four Cup wins came in 1919, which was Victoria's only appearance in the Cup finals. It was also the spring of the deadly Spanish Flu.
Both teams were healthy this time around, but the Cougars probably felt ill after the first five minutes of the series. It took 4:48 to be exact for Ottawa to take a 3-0 lead as Aurel Joliat scored twice sandwiched around a Buck Boucher goal. Boucher's brother Frank and Howie Morenz would also score before the contest was 13 minutes old. Ottawa took its foot off that gas at that point although Frank Boucher did get a second goal, and the Senators coasted to a 6-1 victory.
The second game was much the same as the Western entry was clearly outclassed in the series. Hooley Smith and Hap Day put the Senators ahead 2-0 in the first eight minutes and Ottawa waltzed to a 6-3 victory and their fourth Stanley Cup title. The series was the coming out party for Frank Boucher as the 21-year-old, who had scored a respectable 25 points during the regular season, found another gear in the series, following up his 3-point effort in the opener with four more points in game two.
After the series the Senators, still bleeding cash, announced that Howie Morenz and Aurel Joliat had both been sold to the Montreal Canadiens.
NOTABLE RETIREMENTS
A pair of players who had pretty distinguished careers in this replay have called it quits. They are long-time Ottawa Senators captain Tommy Dunderdale and goaltender Georges Vezina.
Dunderdale is one of the few pro hockey players born in Australia. His parents settled in Ottawa when he was child and later moved to Winnipeg. Tommy is said to have not played his first organized game of ice hockey until he was 17 years old. He was noted as being an excellent stickhandler and a fast skater with a hard and dangerous shot. His real-life career was played exclusively in the west and he suited up for 231 PCHA games while scoring 194 goals.
Our sim version of Dunderdale got his pro start with the short-lived Montreal Shamrocks of the National Hockey Association in 1909-10. He would then move on to Renfrew for a year and when that club folded, he joined the Ottawa Senators in 1911. Named captain in 1914, Dunderdale helped led the Senators to back-to-back Stanley Cup wins but midway through their bid for a third in a row he was traded to the Quebec Bulldogs and would wind down his career with the Hamilton Tigers after the Bulldogs franchise was sold to Hamilton.
Dunderdale ended up 9th all-time in NHA goals with 73 and would add 34 more in the NHL. Only Bobby Rowe suited up for more than 146 NHA games that Dunderdale played, and he ended up seventh all-time in NHA points.
Vezina, 35, sat out this past season after being released by the Montreal Canadiens when the Habs decided to give their goaltending job to Alex Connell. It was not the dominating career one would expect from Vezina but he did win a pair of Stanley Cups with Montreal (1916 and 1922) as well as help the 1914-15 Portland Rosebuds reach the Cup finals. Twice early in his career with the New Westminster Royals, Vezina was named the top goaltender in the PCHA. He appeared in all three major leagues, 202 games in all, or around 150 less than he did in real life. Presently Dunderdale sits third all-time behind only Cy Denneny and Albert Kerr in goals as an Ottawa Senator.
The real life Vezina had a tragic end as after playing in 327 consecutive games for the Montreal Canadiens before leaving the team in 1925 with an illness. He would die of tuberculosis a few months later. Nicknamed the "Chicoutimi Cumumber" for his calm composure while in goal, Vezina is credited with both the first shutout and first assist by a goaltender in NHL history. The Canadiens donated the Vezina Trophy to the NHL in his memory prior to the 1926-27 season.