|
The 1969–70 NHL season was the 53rd season of the National Hockey League. For the third straight season, the St. Louis Blues reached the Stanley Cup finals, and for the third straight year, the winners of the expansion Western Division were swept four games to none. This time, however, it was at the hands of the Boston Bruins, as the defending champions Montreal Canadiens narrowly missed the playoffs, something that would not happen again for the next quarter century. With the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens out, this meant that all participating teams in the 1970 playoffs were from the United States, the only time this has occurred in league history as of 2015. It was also the final season that teams wore their colored jerseys at home until the 2003–04 season. ==Regular season== Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins became the first (and as of 2015, the only) defenseman in NHL history to win the league scoring championship. He did it by setting a new record for assists with 87 and totalling 120 points, only six shy of the point record set the previous season by teammate Phil Esposito. Along the way, he also won the Norris Trophy for the third straight year as the top defenseman, the Hart Trophy for league MVP, and the Conn Smythe Trophy for the playoff MVP, being the only player in the NHL to win four individual awards. Gordie Howe finished the season within the ten leading NHL point scorers for an all-time record of 21 consecutive seasons; it was the final season he would do so. For the third straight season, the St. Louis Blues easily won the West Division, being the only team in the division to have a winning record. The East Division, however, saw a temporary changing of the guard, as Montreal dropped from first the previous season to fifth, missing the playoffs on the ''total goals scored'' tie-breaker with the New York Rangers. The Rangers were in first place for a time, but injuries on the blueline doomed any hope of a first-place finish, and they even obtained Tim Horton in desperation. It would be the only season Montreal failed to make the playoffs between 1948 and 1995, and as the Toronto Maple Leafs also failed to make the postseason, this set up the only playoffs in NHL history (as of 2015) to feature no Canadian teams. These developments were instrumental in the decision to move Chicago to the West Division in conjunction with the 1970 expansion, and the adoption of "crossover" playoff series between East and West Division teams the following season. The division crossover kept the newer expansion teams out of the Stanley Cup final for the next three seasons. The Bruins and the Black Hawks both tied for the lead in the East with 99 points, but Chicago was awarded first place because they had more wins. It was Chicago's second first-place finish in Black Hawk history (the first being 1966–67) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1969–70 NHL season」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|