It sure was controversial to the Leaf players.

When we were filming our Leaf Classic Games shows, we
aired a number of games from the 1970-71 season and 3
games from the '71 QF between the Leafs and Rangers.

Besides answering the questions we posed on air, the
players talked a lot off camera to us about that
series. The Leaf players questioned putting Plante in
net for that final game. At that time in 1971, Bernie
Parent hadn't established himself in the hockey world
as the star he was later to become. But even then, the
Leaf players had more confidence in Parent than
Plante.

Jacques Plante was not well liked by his Leaf
teammates and whether they were 'coached' by Plante is
very debatable. The players were aware that Plante
chose which games he would play in during the season,
often facing the less formidable opponents. Plante's
personality was also grating and the Leaf players
interviewed for our show remembered and told us some
of the frivolous demands made on Leaf management by
Plante throughout the year.

Why did John McLellan use Plante in that game? Coaches
almost always go the veteran in big games because of
the success those goalies had in the past. To Plante's
credit, he agreed to play and didn't play a bad game.

You just can't get this type of information by reading
newspapers, you have to be lucky enough to have the
players involved speak candidly to you.

I always say: The players know.

As far as Bob Baun goes, the Rangers did target Baun
in the series because he was the veteran who had
played in past playoff battles. The rest of the Leaf
defence were relatively inexperienced and were
mentored by Baun (not Plante). Baun was the type of
aggressive defenceman that all teams targetting at
that time. And Baun's battles with Vic Hadfield in the
series were also a result of an on-going feud they had
since the mid-60's. Baun was a courageous players who
backed down from no one.

Too bad this young Leaf team was broken up by
defections to the WHA.



--- Lloyd Davis <ldaviseditor@...> wrote:

> I don't think it was a controversial move at all.
> The Globe and Mail
> didn't mention the change at all.
>
> No knock on Dorey. Here's the defence the Leafs
> started 1970-71 with:
>
> Dorey, 23 years old, 107 NHL games.
> Glennie, 24 years old, 52 games.
> Ley, 22 years old, 86 games.
> McKenny, 24 years old, 93 games.
> Pelyk, 23 years old, 125 games.
>
> There was also Brad Selwood, 22, who had yet to play
> in the NHL.
>
> That's a decided experience gap. The lone veteran,
> Horton, had been
> traded.
>
> One of the things the Leafs sought from Plante when
> they acquired him
> was to instruct the defence. It's no secret that he
> had strong ideas
> about how he wanted his defencemen to play -- his
> style was rooted in
> his own frustration with a weak defence corps's
> inability to get the
> puck out of the defensive zone. The Star did make a
> comment about the
> Leafs defence trying to "stickhandle" too much in
> game four, rather
> than headmanning the puck.
>
> I don't think it's any surprise that, after
> acquiring Plante and Baun
> (who'd played more than 800 games), the Leafs went
> from ninth in
> goals against to sixth in 1970-71 and '71-72 -- with
> totals
> comparable to Boston and Montreal in those two
> seasons. These two
> players made that young defence corps look good.
>
> I don't note any explicit complaint about Dorey, but
> there were
> comments that Baun was the only Leaf defenceman
> hitting anyone in the
> series. Since Dorey's game was largely physical,
> perhaps he was being
> damned indirectly.
>
>
> On 8-Aug-08, at 5:14 AM, nybos1974 wrote:
>
> > Thanks Lloyd, that explains a lot. The New York
> papers didn't delve
> > into this much and it was hard to know if it was a
> controversial
> > decision or not at the time. It may have been
> more controversial in
> > Toronto, obviously.
> >
> > As for the defencemen, I thought Jim Dorey was
> playing well then and
> > hadn't heard any complaints about him.
>
> --
> Lloyd Davis
> Butterfield 8 Inc.
> 19 Tennis Crescent, #6
> Toronto, ON M4K 1J4
> 416 462 0230
> ldaviseditor@...
> --
>
>
>
>
>