We’ve lost another great one. Tony Esposito passed away on August 10, 2021 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 78 years old. He was a Hall of Fame goaltender who spent 15 years of his 16-year National Hockey League career with the Chicago Black Hawks.
He started off with the Montreal Canadiens in 1968-69 but at the end of that season, the goalie-rich Habs left Esposito unprotected. That summer of 1969, he was picked up by Chicago for the waiver fee of $30,000.
Please Note – This article was originally posted at FiredUp Network, a sports website out of Toronto. It is republished on the Sports History Network with permission from FiredUP to provide you with added sports history. Check out FiredUP today.
Origin Story of A Future Hall of Famer
His was a story of a sometimes reluctant goaltender who always excelled while performing at his position but at times during his youth, his intensity was almost squelched by his stress and anxiety.
In 1962, Tony’s father, Pat, and Pat’s friend, local sporting goods store owner, Angelo Bumbacco revived the Soo Greyhounds and the newly minted team played in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey Association.
They wanted Tony to be their goalie. But Tony had been playing high school football and between that and his classes, he hadn’t been on the ice much in the previous year. He wasn’t sure if he either wanted to play hockey or would even be good at it anymore.
He had to be talked into trying it out for a week, and eventually he ended up lasting the season, with much success.
One night though, during a game in Sudbury, Tony had to stop the game. One of his contact lenses had slipped and he couldn’t see out of one eye. It wasn’t long before both teams and Mr. Esposito were on the ice on their hands and knees trying to find one of Tony’s contacts.
Tony headed back to his dressing room for a moment and while casually touching his face, he found the lens.
It had tucked itself into the corner of his eye. He rushed out to tell everyone that they could stop looking for the lens. Pat Esposito was very happy and very relieved for two reasons. Firstly, the Greyhounds needed this game and second, those lenses cost $120 a pair!
Tony ended up getting two scholarship offers.
One was for football from a small college near Boston. The other was for hockey from Michigan Technological University, or, the Michigan Tech Huskies as they are more commonly known.
Tony decided on hockey and did pretty well there as well. He played at the school for three years and in the 1964-65 season, he helped lead the team to a 24-5-1 record and a national championship.
Recognized by NHL
His play was getting noticed by National Hockey League scouts, and when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration after the 1966-67 season, the Montreal Canadiens came calling. Tony wasn’t sure what to think about his future in pro hockey, but he figured he’d give it a few years and if it panned out, then all would be good.
The Habs signed the then-24-year-old netminder and immediately sent him first to the Cleveland Barons where he teamed with Gerry Desjardins. Desjardins was very good though and Tony had to ride the bench for a while. Montreal was concerned that he wasn’t getting enough ice time, so they loaned him to the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey League.
He played 64 games that first professional season. The next year, he started the season with the Houston Apollos of the Central Hockey League.
By this time, there were enough people who were very impressed with the play of this young goaltender.
Jim Robson was the play-by-play man for the Canucks back in the mid to late 1960s and he remembered Tony as a quiet guy who didn’t really mingle with his teammates but when the lights came on and the puck dropped, he was absolutely ready. He spoke to an off-camera interviewer for the hockey documentary series, Legends of Hockey.
“He had very poor eyesight. He used to like to read a lot on the buses,” Robson said, in a television interview. “He kept to himself on the team bus and he’d come off the bus and you’d see all these hockey players coming by and you’d see this guy in his raincoat or his overcoat done up high and these dark rimmed glasses.
He looked like Clark Kent, he didn’t look like an athlete. And, of course, when the game started, he was more like Superman, because he was an outstanding goaltender.”
His older brother Phil told a story on Legends of Hockey of Tony’s mindset when it came to playing and preparation. “Tony is very intense. When it came to the game, there was no talking to him…miserable…and if you tried to talk to him, it was like, ‘Get away from me!
I don’t want to talk to you. Get away from me!’ Now, he was miserable going into the net because that’s the way he believed he had to be to play his best. That’s what he believed, okay. And if that’s the way the guy gets up for a game, then, that’s fine.”
Tony With Canadians
Tony put it this way in Hal Bock’s 1974 book
SAVE! Hockey’s Brave Goalies, “Sure, I’m nervous every time I’m out there.
Even when I was a kid, I felt the pressure. All the guys – Phil was the worst – were blaming me when we lost and after a while, I was blaming myself. It’s still torture. It’s a job.
That’s what it is, a job. There’s pressure every time you are in there.
That’s the name of the game – pressure.”
The Montreal Canadiens were fairly set with their goaltenders, of course, because they had the veteran Gump Worsley and the younger Rogatien Vachon as their big league tandem. But Worsley was 39 years old by the time the 1968-69 season started and he wasn’t really fond of flying.
He hated it, in fact. So much so, that at this stage of his career, he would forego certain road trips. One such road trip was the Canadiens’ western swing to California in November of 1968. Tony was called on to back up Rogie Vachon.
In Oakland, on November 29, Vachon took a shot off his forehead just above his eye a little less than fifteen minutes into the second period. The Seals had scored on the rebound off Vachon’s face and as a result of the injury, Rogie had to leave the game. Coach Claude Ruel shouted to the end of the bench, “Tony, get in there……and don’t be nervous!”
But Tony wasn’t mentally prepared and he WAS nervous. He made his big league debut with his team trailing 3-2. After the game, Tony was heard to say “I was shaking in my pads!” His teammates rallied around him allowing just six shots, but two of them went into the net for goals and the Canadiens lost 5-4.
Before you ridicule Tony or those Seals, the win did move Oakland into second place in the West Division, so they weren’t the really bad Oakland Seals a lot of people remember at that point, but it was not the debut that Tony would have really preferred.
His first NHL start came on Thursday, December 5, 1968. He was 25 years old. And, of course, it had to be against his brother Phil’s Bruins in the Boston Garden. At that point in the season, the two teams were incredibly close in the standings. The Habs came into the game in second place behind the New York Rangers with a record of 14-6-3 and the Bruins were in third with a 13-6-3 mark.
Tony was understandably nervous.
“They’re jam packed in there and they don’t like the Montreal Canadiens. So you know it’s gonna be one of those games. I just told myself, you know, ‘just focus on the first five minutes, and if you get through that, you’ll be fine’”, the younger Esposito said in an interview for the Legends of Hockey series.
Phil picks up the rest of the story of Tony’s debut. And keep in mind, in 1968, there was little coverage of the games on television outside of Saturday night telecasts of Hockey Night in Canada and there was no social media to speak of.
“After the game, I went home, and I got two phone calls. One from Tony’s wife, Marilyn, and one from my Mom. And I can tell you right now, verbatim, and this is how they went. ‘Well?
Well? How’d he do?’ I said ‘He did fantastic, it was a 2-2 tie and Tony was outstanding, he was second star of the night.’”
Then each of Tony’s wife and Mom said according to Phil, “’Really? That’s terrific, great. Who scored the first goal against him?’ I said, ‘Well, I got that. I scored the first goal against Tony.’ ‘Who scored the second one?’ I said ‘Well….I got that one too.’ ‘How could you do that to your brother, you dirty so-and-so, how could you do that?
You’re gonna kill his career!’ I said ‘Ma, relax, he was fine.’ ‘How could you do that?’ I said ‘Well, Tony was the second star and I was the first.’ ” And Phil laughed as he finished the story.
In all, Tony played thirteen games with the Habs that season. He started twelve and came on in relief in that game in Oakland. His record was 5-4-4 but his goals against average was 2.74 and his save percentage was a very creditable .919. Pretty good numbers for a first year goaltender in the best league in the world. But in the off-season, the Canadiens had to make some decisions.
There was this thing at that time called the intra-league draft and after every season, teams had to make a list of the players that they chose to protect and keep and those that they felt they could leave unprotected and then, the teams, from the lowest placed to the highest placed would be able to pick through these unprotected players and add them to their clubs.
Each team protected fourteen skaters and two goalies. That draft took place on June 11, 1969. The Chicago Black Hawks had finished last in the East in the 1968-69 season
Esposito and Chicago
Chicago general manager Tommy Ivan before the draft in Hal Bock’s book SAVE!:
“Well, I’ve always liked the name Esposito. If there’s someone by that name available tomorrow, I might give it some thought.”
Tony’s brother Phil was once a member of the Chicago Black Hawks and Tommy Ivan traded him away to Boston two years earlier.
Ivan had endured a lot of criticism over that deal after Phil blossomed into a superstar with the Bruins. Ivan was sufficiently impressed, though, with the younger Esposito brother and was anxious to improve his team.
Tommy Ivan after the draft: “I don’t know if Tony can play in the big leagues or not, but we liked what we saw of him with the Canadiens and he sure was good enough in the minors.”
Tony in Dick Irvin’s 1995 book In The Crease: “When that season was over, they had to protect me or Gump. They protected Gump and I was picked up by Chicago.”
Montreal, feeling secure in their top goaltenders, Worsley and Vachon, allowed Tony to be unprotected. And, the Hawks swooped in and claimed him as their new goalie of the future. All they had to do was pay the $30,000 waiver fee and he was theirs.
Tony would not forget this and it would come back to haunt the Canadiens the next year. There were people at the time who wondered what the Habs were thinking. Montreal Gazette columnist Red Fisher was one of them.
“At the end of the season, at the end of a very short period of wearing the sweater, he was gone!”, Fisher exclaimed to Legends of Hockey. “He was clearly better than the goalkeepers who were still in Montreal. And I’m quite sure that Canadiens’ management themselves who made the decision (to leave him unprotected), perhaps asked themselves that very same question. ‘Why didn’t we keep this guy?’”
The following season, Tony Esposito would make his former team pay, and in the process, begin one of the finest five year runs any goalie has ever had in league history. But let’s start with what happened in the 1969-70 season.
First Year in Chicago
Going into the last day of that campaign, the Bruins and Chicago were tied at the top of the East Division with 97 points.
Detroit had 95 points. Montreal was in fourth with 92 and the Rangers had 90.
New York needed to score at least five goals to give themselves a chance to make the playoffs. They beat the Red Wings 9-5 in the afternoon. Boston beat last place Toronto 3-1. That meant that going into that evening’s game between Chicago and Montreal, both the Rangers and Habs had 92 points. The Canadiens had to either tie with the Hawks or score five goals (because goals for would have favoured Montreal) in order to advance to the postseason.
But, Tony Esposito had other plans. That night, Sunday, April 5, in Chicago Stadium, the Madhouse on Madison Street, the game that would decide the 1970 Stanley Cup playoff participants would take place. The night before, in Montreal, he shut the door and the Hawks dumped the Habs 4-1.
But on the Sunday night, Yvan Cournoyer put the Canadiens ahead about halfway through the first period on a pass from Jean Beliveau while the Hawks’ Doug Jarrett was in the penalty box for tripping.
But about three and a half minutes later, Jim Pappin got a goal to tie the game. He took a pass from Keith Magnuson while Montreal’s defenseman Ted Harris was in the box. Hubert “Pit” Martin put the Hawks ahead with a power play marker of his own a couple of minutes after the Pappin goal and the first period ended 2-1 for Chicago.
Tony made some key saves in this game that proved to make the difference in the final result. Stan Mikita thought that an Esposito save off of Jean Beliveau at the goalmouth late in the first period was the big one. “I don’t know how Tony got his hand on it, but that was the turning point and would have made it 2-2”, Mikita told the Montreal Gazette.
When Bobby Hull scored less than a minute and a half into the second period, it put the Habs into full desperation mode.
Two minutes later, Beliveau scored to bring the Canadiens to within a goal, but a certain goalie was going to make sure that Montreal got no more. Coach Claude Ruel talked after the game about a save that Tony made late in the second period off of Henri Richard as the game saver and the turning point. He made the save with his head. After that, it was all academic.
Martin scored twice about halfway through the third period within three and a half minutes of each other to put Chicago up 5-2. Ruel pulled Rogatien Vachon to try to give his team a chance to score, but all it did was give the Hawks FIVE empty net goals. Chicago won 10-2. The fans in the building were delirious. The Hawks had gone from last in the East in 1969 to first in the division in 1970 and the Habs missed the playoffs for the first time in 22 years!
Lance Hornby reported in the Toronto Sun, after Tony’s passing, that this was the biggest game and biggest win of his career.
After the end of his playing career, Esposito told author Chris McDonnell that of all the games that he had played in and all the games he had won, this game meant more to him than any other. “The fans were just wild, screaming ‘We’re Number 1!’ I can’t think of a more satisfying game.”
The Hawks went on to sweep the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs. But then, they themselves were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins. The Bruins knocked off the St. Louis Blues in four straight with that series culminating in the amazing Bobby Orr ‘Flying Through The Air’ Goal.
For Tony Esposito, the 1969-70 season was a personal triumph. No, he didn’t win the Stanley Cup or even get to it, but he had an amazing season in which he played 63 games and won 38 of them and tied 8 more. He led the league with a save percentage of .932 and he recorded FIFTEEN shutouts! His goals against average of 2.17 gave him the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie.
He was still technically a rookie and his performance merited the Calder Trophy as the best first year player in the NHL as well. He was a first-team All-Star AND he came second in the Hart Trophy voting as the league’s Most Valuable Player to the man who scored the final goal of the Cup final and the season, Bobby Orr.
Yes, the season was good for Tony-O, but the Montreal Canadiens would return to chat with him again the following year.
1970-71' NHL Season
In the 1970-71 season, Tony Esposito again posted some great numbers. He played in 57 games. He won 35 of them, lost only 14 and tied 7. His goals against average was just over what it had been in his amazing, award-winning season the year before, and it came in at 2.27.
His save percentage was still really good at .919. Tony’s shutout total fell to six, and he finished eighth in the Hart Trophy voting that year.
With two new teams added to the league in the summer of 1970 in the Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres, the Hawks were moved over to the West Division. (And in the league’s infinite wisdom, the Canucks played in the East Division.) Chicago finished the season as the best in the West and eventually made it through to a berth in the Stanley Cup Final series. Their opponent that spring would be Tony’s former team, the Montreal Canadiens.
Before they could get to play Montreal though, the Hawks would sweep the Philadelphia Flyers and then play a tough seven game series against the New York Rangers. That series went to the absolute limit and it came down to the last twenty minutes. The Broadway Blueshirts had won Game 6 in triple overtime and felt they had the edge going into Game 7.
But it was Chicago who scored first. Jim Pappin tallied a power play marker, his sixth goal of the playoffs, late in the first period. The Rangers tied it before the end of the frame on a goal by Peter Stemkowski. In the twelfth minute of the second period, the Rangers GAG line (for Goal-A-Game) of Jean Ratelle, Rod Gilbert and Vic Hadfield imposed their will on the game and Gilbert scored to give New York the lead. But less than two minutes after that, the Hawks Cliff Koroll scored another power play marker to tie the score as the teams headed into the intermission.
In the third, Lou Angotti was at centre and subbing for the injured “Pit” Martin in the fifth minute. He won a faceoff in the Rangers zone and got it back to Bobby Hull. Hull moved into the high slot and buried it past Ed Giacomin for the game winner.
Chico Maki scored an empty-netter with 26 seconds left to ice the victory and send the Hawks to the Stanley Cup Final.
Tony Esposito stopped 36 of 38 shots to get the win. He had played in every game the Hawks had played since Christmas, except for four.
After Game 7, a reporter asked Tony if he had been nervous as the Rangers buzzed around the Chicago zone in the third period. “If I wasn’t nervous in a situation like that, I’d have to be stupid. The Rangers have a great forechecking team. They got a lot of shots and I had to be quick.”
As the final series approached, his former Montreal teammates knew Tony’s abilities and what he had done to them the previous year. The Gazette’s Ted Blackman wrote “The Montreal Canadiens were angry spectators during the Stanley Cup scuffling last year and they haven’t forgotten the man responsible for the involuntary idleness.
As they prepared for the final stretch of their quest for their tenth Stanley Cup in 16 years, he wasn’t far from their mind.”
Habs’ defenseman Terry Harper was direct in his comments. “Tony Esposito is the key. He’s the guy who kept us out of the playoffs last year. We couldn’t score on the guy.” That was the sentiment echoed by Montreal player after Montreal player as the teams prepared to square off for the Stanley Cup in early May of 1971.
Game 1 started out like a middleweight fight, with both teams taking shot after shot at their opponent. Chicago outshot Montreal in the first period of that first game 18-12. No one scored a goal though. In the second period the Habs outshot the home team 12-11 and scored the only goal of the stanza as well. Jacques Lemaire took a pass from J.C. Tremblay and sent it high to the far side past Tony to give the Canadiens a 1-0 lead.
Bobby Hull got Chicago even in the eighth minute of the third period. The Hawks outshot Montreal 17-7 in the third period, but Ken Dryden, the young netminder, gave up just the one goal.
The teams would go to double overtime to decide a winner for this game. And it was Jim Pappin who would notch the OT winner for Chicago. He found himself wide open at the side of the net and Stan Mikita was able to get a pass over to Pappin for the victory. For his part, Tony Esposito stopped 36 of 37 shots that came his way. Dryden stopped 56 of the 58 Black Hawks’ shots on the night. Any presumption that Chicago would have been tired for this series were dispelled by their performance in this first game.
It became a homer’s series. Chicago took the first two games at The Madhouse.
Montreal took the next two at the Forum.
The Hawks won Game 5 at Chicago Stadium and the Habs won Game 6 back in Montreal. It all came down to one game in the Windy City on Tuesday, May 18.
The Hawks took a 1-0 lead on a Dennis Hull power play goal late in the first period. They added to that lead on a Danny O’Shea goal in the eighth minute of the second period. Chicago almost had a three goal lead a few minutes later when a Bobby Hull shot beat Dryden but clanged off the crossbar.
And then, moments after that, the Canadiens got on the board on a strange goal. Jacques Lemaire took a slap shot from outside the blue line about 75 feet away from Tony Esposito’s net and it found the twine behind the Hawks’ goalie.
In his defense, Tony was slightly screened by his defenseman Bill White on the play. He said he got a piece of it at the last second but he couldn’t keep it from going into the net. “I don’t blame Tony”, Bobby Hull told reporters after the game. “Those goals like Lemaire’s happen. I’ve got some myself. Even after that, we were still leading and had the momentum. Their second goal took some sand out of us though, although I don’t know what happened.”
What happened on that second goal was that Lemaire had stolen the puck from Chicago’s Eric Nesterenko in the corner near the Hawks’ net and centered it over to Henri Richard in the low slot who calmly deposited it into the net late in the second period. That made the score 2-2 going into the intermission.
The crowd inside Chicago Stadium became quiet and uneasy and it all happened in a span of just over four minutes of playing time in that second period.
Then, just two and a half minutes into the third period, Richard scored again to give Montreal the lead they would never relinquish. The Canadiens killed off two successive penalties right after that goal and then Ken Dryden took the wind out of the Hawks’ sails with a showstopping save off Jim Pappin when Pappin was sure he had scored.
Dryden got his long leg out and made the pad save as Pappin was starting to raise his arms in the air in celebration. Montreal took Game 7 by a score of 3-2.
Tony Esposito had not won his Stanley Cup in 1971, but the result made him more determined to get back to those lofty heights and try to win a championship. The Hawks had not only been back in the playoffs in each year during Tony’s time as the main goaltender, but they had finished in first place in their division in each season as well. This would continue as he came back strongly in the 1971-72 season for Chicago.
71'-72' NHL Season
A quick look at the overall standings and statistics for the 1971-72 season showed that, for Tony, this was the best statistical season of his career. He played fewer games than he had in either of his first two seasons but his resulting numbers were spectacular.
He had a save percentage on the regular season of .934 and a goals against average of 1.77 in 48 games. The team finished with 46 wins, 17 losses and 15 ties for 107 points. His goaltending partner that year was the journeyman Gary “Suitcase” Smith. Before training camp in September of 1972, Chicago sent three players to the California Golden Seals to get Smith.
The previous year, Smith had appeared in 71 of the Seals’ 78 games. With Chicago, behind Tony Esposito, Smith got into 28 games. The lighter load seemed to agree with the 27-year-old Ottawa native.
He posted a save percentage of .911, the second-best of his career, and a career best goals against average of 2.42.
The pair were awarded the Vezina Trophy as the best goaltending duo in the NHL. Additionally, Tony was named to the First All-Star Team once again, just as he had been in the 1969-70 season. He garnered enough votes to finish sixth in the voting for the Hart Trophy as the league’s Most Valuable Player.
That 1971-72 season was special to Tony.
He talked about it specifically in Dick Irvin’s book In The Crease. “Everybody remembers my first season in Chicago with the 15 shutouts. That was exciting, but don’t forget I had a very good hockey team in front of me. Actually, the season I enjoyed the most was two years after that, the one where my goals against average was under two. That’s my favourite.”
When people talked about the stars of the Chicago Black Hawks, Tony was mentioned with the big boys, Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. That was not lost on him. “On our team, I was compared with Mikita and Hull then, which was quite an honour.
It’s nice to be put in that top tier” he said in a television interview years later.
Global Hockey
These accolades and awards were all well and good for the regular season, but the playoffs were another matter. The Hawks swept the Pittsburgh Penguins in their first round matchup. But then Chicago faced the very strong New York Rangers and were swept themselves.
The Rangers then lost the Cup final to the Bruins in six games. So, it was back to the drawing board for Chicago for the 1972-73 season. But before that, there was a little issue of global hockey supremacy to be decided.
On April 18, 1972, an agreement was reached between hockey officials from Canada, the Soviet Union and the International Ice Hockey Committee for Canada and Soviet Russia to play in an eight-game summit series to determine which nation was the greater in the sport of hockey.
The tournament would take place in September with four games being played in four different cities in Canada and four games going on in Moscow.
The timeline is important to take note of because some little things would happen along the way that would cause some kinks in the Canadian lineup as the spring and summer of 1972 wore on.
On June 27, Bobby Hull left the Chicago Black Hawks and signed a huge deal with the newly minted Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association. On July 12, the Team Canada roster was revealed. There was some intrigue though as to who some of the participants might be.
Hull was on the original list of players who were named to the Team Canada roster, but, one of the rules in the agreement between the countries and the IIHF was that players for Canada had to be signed to NHL contracts before training camp started in August (for insurance purposes). Because Hull had signed with the WHA, he was not allowed to play for Canada in 1972.
The same clause applied to other players originally on the Team Canada roster like goalie Gerry Cheevers, defenseman J.C. Tremblay and centreman Derek Sanderson. Controversy brewed, especially over Bobby Hull. Dennis Hull considered giving up his spot on Team Canada for his brother but Bobby told Dennis to go and play.
The goalies were supposed to be Tony Esposito, Ken Dryden and Gerry Cheevers, but, instead of Cheevers, Eddie Johnston was selected to the team. Jacques Laperriere was also on the original roster but he declined the invitation as his wife was about to give birth around the time of the series.
So, instead of Tremblay and Laperriere playing on defense, Team Canada went with Brian Glennie of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Dale Tallon of the Vancouver Canucks and Guy Lapointe of the Canadiens. Stan Mikita replaced Sanderson.
Over an eight game series, it would be likely that two goalies might see action. The third would be there as a possible replacement in the event of an injury to one of the other two. Eddie Johnston was to be that third replacement guy. Dryden and Esposito would see the real action for Team Canada. Canada’s other goalie, who was used mostly in practice situations was Michel “Bunny” Larocque, who was also Dryden’s backup in Montreal.
We all know what happened in the series.
Canada came back from being down three games to one with one game tied to rally back and win Games 6, 7 and 8 in Moscow to dramatically take the series. But when you consider that Tony Esposito played his first game in the series in Game 2 in Toronto and backstopped Canada’s to their first win of the set and was named co-MVP of that game for Canada, that has to be noted.
Tony was also the goalie for Game 3 in Winnipeg. The game ended in a 4-4 tie, so Tony-O had gained a win and a tie in his two games to that point in the series. He played again in Game 5, the first game in Moscow. Canada lost that one 5-4, but he was again named co-MVP in that game for his team despite the loss.
Tony also played in Game 7 and got the win in that series tying game. Dryden would play the remainder of the games in the series and eventually, Canada would win, but Tony Esposito proved his worth once again, this time on the international stage.
He didn’t play in the decisive Game 8, but he did make a contribution to the team. According to Ted Blackman, in the September 29, 1972 edition of the Montreal Gazette, “Between the second and third periods, Tony Esposito rose to make a short and poignant speech: “If those bastards can score five on me (as they had in Game 5), then we can get enough in the third.’”
Canada trailed the Soviets 5-3 going into that third period in Game 8 and scored three goals including Paul Henderson’s winner with just 34 seconds left to take that game and the series.
In fact, when you look at the goaltending statistics for that series, Tony had the better goals against average of the three men (himself, Dryden and Vladislav Tretiak) who played in the series.
Also, he was the only goaltender who came out of the series with a winning record, having won twice, lost once and tied once. Dryden won twice as well, but also lost twice. Tretiak won three games, lost four and tied one.
Tony wasn’t thrilled with the platoon situation that existed between himself and Dryden. He was used to playing the bulk of the games for whatever team he was playing on and sitting on the bench was not easy for him. Again, he talked about it with Dick Irvin for In The Crease. “I alternated with Ken Dryden and I didn’t like that too much.
I played okay, I guess. Not great but not bad.”
There was little time for the Canadian players to celebrate their big win in Moscow. The last game of that series took place on September 28. The players then had to scatter across North America and join their club teams. NHL training camps had already begun and the regular season was set to get started in early October.
For the Hawks, they were set to play the Toronto Maple Leafs in their season opener on October 7. It would result in a 3-1 Chicago victory and would be another successful debut for Tony Esposito in what would become another division clinching season.
72'-73' NHL Season
The 1972-73 season was once again a prodigious one for the Hawks. Not only did they finish atop the West Division, but they had three players selected to the Second All-Star Team: Tony Esposito in goal, Bill White on defense and Dennis Hull on the left wing. Tony would also finish in the top ten in Hart Trophy voting once again, his fourth straight year doing so.
The playoffs went well for Chicago as well. In the first round, they defeated the St. Louis Blues in five games. That put them into a second round matchup with the team that had swept them the year before, the Rangers. This time though, it was the Hawks that asserted their will on their opponents, knocking New York off in five games.
Tony was on fire in the postseason. Out of the ten games in the first two rounds, he played in nine and gave up a total of just fourteen goals. He had eight wins and just one loss, he also had a shutout against the Blues and he had a total save percentage in the two combined series of .947. The series victory over the Rangers propelled the Hawks into the Stanley Cup Final series and they were once again facing the Montreal Canadiens.
In this series, however, unlike in the Cup Final two years previous, Chicago was the underdog going in. The Canadiens that season were quite formidable.
Montreal had a record of 52-10-16 and boasted a lineup that contained eleven Hall Of Famers. In games decided by three goals or more, the Habs boasted 30 wins, and just one loss. No team in the league even came close to those numbers.
But if you looked at how the teams had played against one another, the Hawks had been competitive. In fact, in the five games the teams faced each other, Chicago won three and lost two. To quote Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”
But then, reality set in. Games 1 and 2 were played in Montreal. The Habs routed the Hawks 8-3 in the first meeting and dumped them 4-1 in the second. Game 3 in Chicago was better for the home team. They bested Montreal 7-4. But then, in Game 4, the Canadiens shut out the Hawks 4-0. Chicago stayed alive though, winning Game 5 in Montreal by a score of 8-7. The Canadiens won the series though in Game 6, taking a 6-4 decision. It was not a good set of games for the goalies.
Ken Dryden and Tony Esposito had been partners with Team Canada in September. They had been good enough all season long to be selected First Team and Second Team All-Stars respectively at the end of the year. But for each goalie in this final series, their numbers make it appear that the long season had caught up to them. Dryden finished the series with a goals against average of 3.52 and a save percentage of .868. Tony’s goals against average was 5.44 and his save percentage was just .831.
73'-74' NHL Season
The summer of 1973 gave many of the Hawks’ players the opportunity to get some rest and get their minds off hockey for the first time in nine months. Tony Esposito would come back strong in the 1973-74 season.
Chicago had a better statistical year in ’73-74 than they had in the previous year. They finished the season with a record of 41-14-23 for 105 points, compared to 42-27-9 to finish ’72-73. By Christmas of 1973, the Hawks had lost just six games. And yet, no one could have foreseen the rise of the Philadelphia Flyers.
The year before, they had finished slightly above .500. In 1973-74, they went 50-16-12. Bernie Parent was sensational in compiling a record of 47-13-12 with a 1.89 goals against average. Tony had a 34-14-21 record with a 2.05 average.
The Flyers and the Hawks finished tied as the best defensive teams in the league. Each gave up just 164 goals in 78 games. Tony and Bernie Parent shared the Vezina Trophy that season. Parent was the First Team All-Star goalie and Tony was once again the Second Team keeper.
But Tony’s brother Phil had a season to remember as well! Phil won the Hart Trophy as the league’s Most Valuable Player. He also won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer with a total of 68 goals, 77 assists and 145 points. Phil’s teammate, Bobby Orr, was selected as the Norris Trophy winner as the best defenseman in the league.
And while Tony came fifth in the Hart Trophy voting that year, Parent came second to Phil and Bobby Clarke came fourth. Orr was third in the selectors’ eyes.
Rest of Tony's Career
By the time the playoffs ended in the spring of 1974, Tony was 31 years old and he had completed five spectacular seasons of goaltending at the National Hockey League level.
He would play another decade in the league and, although his numbers would never again reach the heights of these previous five seasons (plus the season he had spent with the Canadiens), the Hawks would make it to the postseason in every one of his fifteen seasons in Chicago. That, in itself, is quite remarkable.
In February of 1979, Tony was two months away from his 36th birthday but he found himself on the Team NHL roster in the only ever Challenge Cup, a best of three series of games between the best of the National Hockey League and the Soviet National team that was played during the period the league has its traditional All-Star break. The squads split the first two games with the NHL group winning the first game 4-2 and the Soviets taking the second affair 5-4.
Ken Dryden played both of those games for the NHL team.
Gerry Cheevers played in the third game for Team NHL. That game was an ignominious 6-0 loss. It was not Cheevers’ fault, but it was a loss nonetheless. The light was starting to dim on Tony’s hockey stardom by this time but he still wanted to remain relevant.
By the time the 1981 Canada Cup had come around, and realizing that he wasn’t going to be invited to the Team Canada training camp, he took out American citizenship and played for his country of residence,Team USA.
The Americans finished the round robin with a record of 2-2-1, But Tony might want that game against Canada back. The United States had pulled even with Canada in the third period on a couple of quick goals by Dean Talafous and Mark Johnson.
But then, a Mike O’Connell penalty at the 9:40 mark of the final frame opened the door for Canada. Goals by Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier, Wayne Gretzky, Trottier again and Gilbert Perreault within a span of 5:45 completely dismantled the Yanks.
The only quote in the Montreal Gazette from Tony was that he felt Andy Van Hellemond made a mistake on Trottier’s first goal in that flurry. “That puck wasn’t over the line!” fumed Tony. “The referee couldn’t have seen it go over the line!” The two teams faced each other again in the tournament semi final with Canada winning 4-1.
A Hall of Fame Career
Through his NHL career, Tony had been used to carrying the load and playing as many games as he would be allowed to play.
In Dick Irvin’s book on goaltenders, In The Crease, there is a chapter on Tony Esposito and Tony talks about playing the bulk of the time. “Right from the start in Chicago, I played a lot of games. I had nine seasons with 60 games and two over 70. That’s the way I liked it. I didn’t mind all the work.”
“What happened at the end was they brought in other goalies. Murray Bannerman and a guy named Janecyk. They thought I was getting old.” He continued, “I had planned to play until I was forty-five and I could have if they’d let me keep playing most of the games. That’s why I retired at forty-one instead of forty-five.”
Tony retired after the 1983-84 season. He played just 18 games that year and won only five. On November 20, 1988, the Hawks retired his number 35.
Like many other goalies, Tony Esposito was a complex individual, not a one-dimensional person at all. Having graduated from Michigan Tech in just three years with a Bachelor of Science degree, he had an agile mind and an intense but thoughtful outlook.
In 2008, sports broadcaster Mike Ross hosted a show on XM Radio with Phil Esposito called “In The Slot” for a number of years, and the two men had the opportunity to interview Tony. Ross told me in an interview for my Sports Lunatics sports history show on the FiredUp Network that Tony was, in his words, “a Brain” and the two brothers had their own unique way of interacting with each other.
According to Ross, Phil would derisively refer to Tony as “College Boy”, after which Tony would call his older brother “Stupido”. He related a story about when the brothers were early in their NHL careers and they would go back home to Sault Ste. Marie in the summer and work at a local quarry.
Phil would be working in the pits driving the trucks and getting dirty doing the heavy labour. Tony, with his collegiate background, would be working in the air-conditioned office. “It’s not so bad being a college boy, eh?”
Tony also had a craftiness about him. He constantly studied the rule book to see what was allowed, or perhaps more specifically, not not allowed when it came to a goaltender’s equipment. For instance, there was a rule that stipulated the maximum length of a goalie’s catching glove. But there were no restrictions on the width.
So Tony would take his glove home and add pieces to it to make it wider. He was quite adept with a needle and thread and he altered his hockey pants and his goal pads to his own specifications as well.
But there were people at the league level who had their suspicions about what Tony was doing. “We were always suspicious of Tony Esposito”, said Bryan Lewis, former NHL referee in a Legends of Hockey episode.
“And he would be the master. He’s probably changed the game for goalies over the years and probably one of the main reasons today that they’re trying to have such a hard crackdown on goalkeepers, because of what he’s done in the past.”
The intensity, dedication and commitment to excellence that Tony played with his entire life made him a Hall of Fame hockey player. He was elected into the hockey shrine in 1988. His athleticism, tenacity and the quality of his play over his entire career endeared him to Chicago fans and made him a favourite for people all over the world.
After Tony Esposito and Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull all had retired or left Chicago at different points in time, relations between the team and their big stars of that era cooled somewhat. That seemed to coincide with the fortunes of the team on the ice as well. Those Hawks teams did not fare well when it came to the standings.
In 2008, the Hawks brought Tony back into the fold as an ambassador. It may or may not be a coincidence that after that, the team’s performance began to improve and that manifested itself in Stanley Cup victories in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
In 2017, as Lance Hornby wrote in a Toronto Sun piece after Tony’s passing, former team President John McDonough told the Chicago Tribune, “He has really rekindled the spirit and soul of the Blackhawks. I remember coming to the United Center when people would chant ‘Tony! Tony!’ He is really a pillar of this franchise.”
He always will be.
Author - Howie Mooney
When he lived in Ottawa, Canada, Howie was a fixture in sports media. He covered the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders, the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, and the OHL’s Ottawa 67s for local television. He also did color commentary for Ottawa Lynx games. The Lynx were the Triple-A affiliates of the Montreal Expos and Baltimore Orioles.
He also spent time as co-host on the morning show for Ottawa Sports Radio. He was co-author of Third & Long – A Proud History of Football in Ottawa and is currently the co-host of The Sports Lunatics Show, a sports history podcast.
He is also a feature writer for the FiredUp Network, a sports website out of Toronto.
