NHL

Devils try to turn over new ‘Leaf’ in Stanley Cup history

LOS ANGELES — The feat the Devils have half-finished has never been accomplished in the “Modern Era” of the NHL, since they put in the red line in 1943.

The only team to win the Stanley Cup Finals from an 0-3 deficit remains the 1942 Maple Leafs, while the Devils are one of only three teams, along with the 1945 Red Wings, to reach Game 6 after falling into an 0-3 hole.

It has been 70 years and a world of change since that Leafs team came back on the Red Wings.

The Leafs opened their playoffs by ousting the league-champion Rangers — who didn’t win another Cup for 50 years, until Roger Neilson, Neil Smith, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Adam Graves, Brian Leetch teamed up in a campaign stunned by a short late-season players’ strike.

After knocking off the Rangers in six, a battle of 1 against 2, the Leafs awaited the survivor among the other four qualifying teams of the seven-team NHL. The Brooklyn Americans, the NHL’s original New York team, missed the postseason and subsequently suspended operations after they were banished from the Garden, launching the legend of Red Dutton’s Curse on the Rangers that haunted Broadway for 54 years.

The Leafs had gone 10 years without winning the Stanley Cup, just an instant by current Toronto standards, but it didn’t sit well with manager Conn Smythe, who had already joined the Canadian army as a major. Frank Selke took over as interim manager and Clarence “Happy” Day coached the team, led by Syl Apps, Gord Drillon, goalie Turk Broda and Sweeney Schriner.

The Red Wings finished fifth that season (19-25-4), 15 points behind the Leafs, a significant gap in a 48-game season. Still, they knocked off the defending Cup champion Bruins in their playoff run.

Detroit was coached by Jack Adams, who flummoxed the Leafs with a dump-and-chase strategy, winning the opening pair in Maple Leaf Gardens. The Red Wings then took Game 3 at home and the Cup seemed assured.

Day turned the series around by benching his leading scorer, Drillon, and inserting lightly regarded Don Metz, who had received a delay on his Feb. 14 induction notice, and had recovered from a broken ankle during the season. Metz was only 2-3-5 in 25 regular season games, but went 4-3-7 in four games of the Finals.

In Game 4, Nick Metz, brother of Don Metz, scored the 4-3 winner, and Adams jumped on the ice to fight ref Mel Harwood. Adams was suspended indefinitely and player/coach Ebbie Goodfellow ran the Detroit bench thereafter.

In Game 5 in Toronto, Don Metz had a hat trick and an assist in a 9-3 thrashing of the Wings, and the opening goal in the Leafs’ Game 6 victory.

Bill “Big Whistle” Chadwick was the ref for Game 7 and his penalty call in the third provided the advantage for Schriner’s tying goal. Pete Langelle scored the Cup-winner and Schriner added insurance.

Those Leafs were broken up by the war, and both Metz brothers were inducted. After the following season, the league introduced the red line for icing. The Red Wings nearly paid the Leafs back in 1945, tying that final from that 0-3 deficit, only to lose Game 7.