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PRESS ROOM 1974: Game 3
MONTREAL GAZETTE
by BRODIE SNYDER
September 21, 1974
Winnipeg
The Russian bear came out of hibernation here Saturday
afternoon, and
made his
first meal a feast at the expense of the junior
varsity that coach
Billy Harris
fielded on behalf of Team Canada 74.
The 8-5 victory for the free wheeling Soviet Union
national team, in a
game
that wasn't as close as the final score, tied the
8 game series between
the
Russians and the World Hockey Association all-stars
at 1-1-1 with Game
Four in
Vancouver tonight.
Harris, with a pair of upsets - a 3-3 tie in Quebec
City and a 4-1 win
in
Toronto - behind his underrated and underdog team
elected to play five
new
faces at the Winnipeg arena in what he admitted
was a "gamble."
It didn't pay off as the Russians - "finally
acclimatized" according to
coach
Boris Kulagin -put on a skating, passing, and shooting
show that
reminded of
the way they had played most of the time in their
first series against
Team
Canada in 1972.
Aleksandr Yakushev, a standout two years ago, but
largely ineffectual
in the
first two games this time, was credited with three
goals, although he
only put
the puck in the net twice, and was the best man
on the ice.
But all the Russians played well, and they gained
momentum as the game
wore on,
particularly as such Team Canada stalwarts as defencemen
Pat Stapleton
and J.C.
Tremblay tired under the strain of a third tough
game in less than five
days.
The Canadians opened the scoring with a pretty
short handed goal by
Bruce
MacGregor, sent in perfectly by Paul Henderson at
14:58 of the first
period,
and flipping the puck high over goalie Vladislav
Tretiaks shoulder, but
the
Canadians fate as it turned had been sealed by then.
With Soviet referee Victor Dombrowski - calling
what could be
charitably
described only as an uneven game, the first three
penalties - and a
penalty
shot - went against the Canadians.
"Playing shorthanded is tough", Stapleton
said. "It breaks up your
lines and
some guys have to play more. They get tired quicker."
There's a mental reaction to. "We got so many
penalties in the first
period",
Paul Henderson, who had two goals later and was
the best Canadian said,
" that
our guys got afraid to hit them. We knew we couldn't
afford to play
short
handed against them. So we got cautious."
That opened it up for the Russians who had been
frustrated by Team
Canada's
hitting in the first two games, unable to work their
pattern passing
plays with
their men being taken out and their timing disrupted.
The Russians had the first great scoring chance
6 minutes into the game
when
Stapleton, outstanding again, hauled down Alexandr
Malstev, who had
burst into
the clear.
"Sure I tripped him," Stapleton said,
"but I though he got away a
pretty good
shot on the play."
The call didn't surprise Harris. "No"
he said "no after the penalty
shot
against them in Toronto Thursday."
That one was on Mike Walton and, like Walton, Malstev
couldn't score on
his
free skate in. He missed the net as Don McLeod -
starting in the place
of Gerry
Cheevers - went across the front of the net with
him.
MacGregor's goal, which came with Rick Smith off
for cross-checking,
was
matched by the Russians before the period ended
as Marty Howe was
caught up the
ice and the Soviets broke away with a two-on-one.
Yakushev broke loose
from Tom
Websters' checking and played it perfectly, using
Vladimir Shadrin as a
decoy
against Al Hamilton, another first time starter,
and beating McLeod
with a hard
wrist shot that nipped the post on the way in.
"I found out you can't stay up there and check
anybody," said Marty
ruefully,
after his first game against the Russians. "I
held that No. 11( Juri
Lebedev)
there, but he got the puck past me with a little
flip and they were
gone."
The Russians took a 2-1 lead at 1:23 of the second
period, just after
an
overlapping penalty to Walton expired. Before he
could get back into
the play,
Boris Mikhailov stuffed in a rebound.
But Team Canada came back to tie it on a pretty
individual effort by
Webster.
The New England right wing, playing in place of
Rejean Houle with Serge
Bernie
and Marc Tardif, who was outstanding throughout,
walked in alone on
Tretiak
after a pretty passing play pulled him out swung
around him and got it
into the
empty net while falling to the ice.
That seemed to give new life to the Canadians who
had been sagging
slightly and
Tretiak had to make big saves off Bobby Hull and
Walton, to keep the
game even.
But the Russians struck for two goals within 17
seconds in the 16th
minute of
the period and began to pull away.
The first was a picture play with defenceman Valeri
Vasilyev working
the puck
from the corner to the left of McLeod out to Mikhailov,
who in turn fed
it to
Vladimir Petrov coming in from the left. He put
it high over McLeod
although
Vasilyev, for some reason was credited with the
goal.
"I think the ice surface, more space in the
corners, worked against
us", Harris
said.
"The corners are almost square here",
Stapleton added, "and the
Russians like
to make plays out of the corners."
On the next rush after that goal, Malstev scored
on a deflection to
make it
4-2, and the Canadians were holding on for the rest
of the period.
The Soviets rushed to the attack again as the third
period began,
Shadrin
closing off a fine passing play with Yakushev by
getting the puck
between
McLeods' legs at 2:35. Yakushev was credited however
with the goal.
The Russians added two more for a 7-2 lead and
a seeming rout when
Bodunov got
his own rebound past McLeod, and Yakushev scored
on a blistering drive
from the
slot.
But the WHA's old folks wouldn't quit and electrified
the crowd of
11,000 by
scoring three times in less than 2 minutes and for
the first time ever
making
Tretiak look somewhat ordinary.
Henderson got the first two of them at 14:31 and
15:04 - one on a low
forehand,
and the second off a MacGregor rebound in close
- and Bernier got a
cheap goal
when Tretiak got his glove on a low shot but the
puck trickled off and
into the
corner.
"If we'd got those goals earlier", Henderson
said, "it would have made
a
difference."
Kulagin said he wasn't worried at that point with
a 7-5 lead and four
minutes
left.
"If it had happened in the second period I
probably would have been
worried" he
said. "But I told my players that the Canadians
always play to the last
minute
and no one had a right to relax."
Lebedev, however cooled off Team Canada and the
crowd as he went around
Paul
Shmyr, cut out in front, and jammed the puck under
McLeod with a
brilliant
effort.
McLeod was les than outstanding, although the Russians
outshoot Team
Canada
39-34 and the Houston Aeros goalie did make some
fine stops, but Harris
defended his decision to make a wholesale change
for the game.
"I feel the way the Soviets played, they probably
would have scored
seven or
eight on Gerry", he said referring to Cheevers
who had been outstanding
in the
first two games, but whom Harris said, "felt
a little tired and agreed
that it
was the move to make." Cheevers also has been
worried by a heart attack
suffered by John Sciamonte, his father-in-law, who
remains in hospital
in
Toronto.
"I thought there would be less pressure putting
McLeod in today than
waiting
for the sixth or seventh game in Moscow", Harris
said.
As for keeping the slightly injured Gordie Howe
and Frank Mahovlich
Rejean
Houle, Rick Ley and Brad Selwood on the sidelines
Harris said; "If I
had to do
it over again, I'd do exactly the same thing. Everybody
on this squad
is going
to play in the series."
"The Soviet team was the better team today
and I didn't feel our team
was as
sharp and as alert as in the first two matches.
The third game in less
than 5
days showed that the Soviet team does have a definite
edge in
conditioning. The
first two games took more out of us than out of
them."
Kulagin, about his teams' improved effort, agreed.
" We played much
better and
the Canadian team played worse. This time we skated
well and stayed
with a
stricter pattern of play. We paid more attention
to defense."
Anything else? "Well", Kulagin said,
"I told them it was high time they
started
playing better hockey."
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