1971 Stanley Cup Finals

The 1971 Stanley Cup Final NHL championship series was contested by the Chicago Black Hawks and the Montreal Canadiens. The Black Hawks made their first appearance in the Final series since 1965, the Canadiens had last played and won the series in 1969. The Canadiens would win the series 4–3.

Paths to the Final

The playoff system changed this year to allow cross-over between the divisions during the playoffs.

Chicago defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4–0 and the New York Rangers 4–3 to advance to the final.

Montreal defeated the defending champion Boston Bruins 4–3 and the Minnesota North Stars 4–2. This set up the first "Original Six" finals since the 1967 Final.

The series

Brothers Frank and Peter Mahovlich starred for the Canadiens, scoring nine goals in the seven game final series. Ken Dryden debuted for the Canadiens, while this was Jean Beliveau's last finals appearance. He ended his career with ten championships. This would be only the second time that the road team would win a game 7 in Finals history. The only previous time it happened was when the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings 2–1 in Game 7 in the 1945 Stanley Cup Finals in Detroit; it would not happen again until 2009, when the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Red Wings in Game 7 by the same 2–1 score. The next 7-game Stanley Cup Finals would not occur until the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals with the Edmonton Oilers and the Philadelphia Flyers.

Montreal wins the series 4–3.

Montreal Canadiens 1971 Stanley Cup champions

Roster

• †Serge Savard played 37 regular season games, but missing the rest of season injured. †Phil Myre played 30 games dressed for 70 games, but was not dressed in the playoffs. Both players were included on the team picture, but not engraved on the cup even though they qualified.
• †† Larry Pleau was included on the team, but did not qualify, so name was not included on the Stanley Cup.

Stanley Cup engraving

• Mistake Al MacNeil (Coach) was engraved on the Stanley Cup as .COACH. MAC NEIL missing his first name "Al". MacNeil was spelled AL MACNEIL COACH on the Replica Cup.
• Phil Roberto was misspelt P ROBRTO missing an "E". Roberto was name corrected P. ROBERTO on the Replica Cup created during the 1992–93 season.

See also

• List of Stanley Cup champions
• 1970–71 NHL season

Notes

References

• Diamond, Dan, ed (2000). Total Stanley Cup. NHL. 
• Podnieks, Andrew; Hockey Hall of Fame (2004). Lord Stanley's Cup. Triumph Books. ISBN 1-55168-261.