FEATURE: The Blackhawks Historic 28-Year Playoff Run

A special to Blackhawks.com by former Public Address Announcer with more than 65 years of Blackhawks hockey coverage.

Rebuilding the Chicago Blackhawks franchise came about in 1954 when the Wirtz and Norris families lured away Tommy Ivan from Detroit, where he had coached the Red Wings to three Stanley Cups and six straight first-place finishes.

It took Ivan five years to build the Blackhawks into a playoff-contending team and a Stanley Cup winner, starting a farm team system that developed eventual Hall of Fame players Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull, and Pierre Pilote, plus shrewd trades for veterans Glenn Hall, Ted Lindsay, Ab McDonald, Ed Litzenberger, Murray Balfour, and Al Arbour, and signing the first college graduate to play in the NHL: Bill Hay.

The Blackhawks captured the Stanley Cup in 1961, breaking a 20-year championship run that was spread among Montreal, Toronto, and Detroit.

The NHL expanded in 1967 after the Blackhawks had finished first for the first time, with six new teams joining the league. In fact, despite a winning record and finishing last in the East Division in 1968-69, the Blackhawks had a better record than three of the West Division playoff teams.

It was a different story for the 1969-70 season when the Blackhawks became the first team to go from last place to first and began a 28-season run of making the playoffs, which ranks second all-time for consecutive playoff appearances.

The playoff run began in dramatic style in the final weekend of the regular season. The Blackhawks needed to win their last two games against Montreal to finish first in the East ahead of Boston. On the other hand, Montreal — the defending Cup champs — had to win both games to make the playoffs for the 22nd straight season, an NHL record at that time.

The drama with the Canadiens started before the season when the Blackhawks claimed goalie Tony Esposito off waivers after Montreal decided to go with two veteran goalies instead of rookie Esposito. Not only did he set a modern-day record of 15 shutouts, but Esposito shut out Montreal the first two times he faced them in the season.

Going into the last two games of the regular season, the Blackhawks won Saturday night in Montreal 4-1. On Sunday night at the Stadium, the Blackhawks led 5-2 mid-way through the third period. Montreal was desperate; they needed to win, tie, or score five goals to make the playoffs.

The Canadiens pulled their goalie shortly after the Blackhawks had scored their fifth goal with 9:16 remaining in play but failed to score. Chicago then set a record with five empty-net goals in a 10-2 victory to knock Montreal out of the playoffs, marking the beginning of 28 seasons of playoff runs.

It’s worth noting that even before that, the Blackhawks had a 10-year playoff run, which means the franchise missed the playoffs just once over a 39-year stretch.

The 28-year playoff streak included 13 first-place finishes, five seconds, five thirds, and three fourths.

Other notable highlights during the 28-year playoff run:

• Three Blackhawks players hit 50-plus goals: Bobby Hull, Jeremy Roenick (twice), and Al Secord. Denis Savard registered the highest point total in Blackhawks history in 1987-88 with 131.
• Doug Wilson set the record for Blackhawks defensemen with 39 goals in 1981-82, which still holds to this day.
• Blackhawks captain and Chicago native Chris Chelios is the only defenseman in franchise history to lead the team in points with 72 on 14 goals and 58 assists in the 1995-96 season. Chelios was also the first Blackhawks defenseman to score winning goals in the playoffs in two straight overtime games. He did it in the semifinals against Vancouver in 1995.
• The Blackhawks hosted two All-Star Games at the Stadium in 1974 and 1991, upping their franchise total to four after also hosting in 1948 and 1961.
• Grant Mulvey became the only Blackhawk to score five goals in a game as he led the team to a 9-5 win over the St. Louis Blues at the Stadium on Feb. 3, 1982, also tying Max Bentley's team record with seven points in a game.
• Steve Larmer’s 15-year NHL career unfolded entirely within this historic playoff window for the Blackhawks, meaning he played postseason hockey in every season of his career. He went on to record 1,012 points in 1,006 regular-season games, including an Ironman streak of 884 consecutive games, one of the most impressive in league history. He remains top 5 in franchise history in both goals and points.
• Goalies are not supposed to be scorers, but the record for the highest Blackhawks point total in a season by a netminder belongs to broadcaster Darren Pang with six assists in the 1987-88 campaign.
• Stan Mikita, the Blackhawks' all-time point leader, was the first player in franchise history to have his jersey (No. 21) retired and raised to the Stadium rafters on October 19, 1980. Bobby Hull, who's the all-time leading goal scorer in Blackhawks history, soon followed, with his No. 9 joining Mikita on Dec. 18, 1983, followed by Hall of Fame goaltenders Tony Esposito (No. 35) and Glenn Hall (No. 1) in 1988.

The list goes on and on.

Over that stretch, one ingredient remained missing: the Blackhawks were never able to win a Stanley Cup. Denis  Savard, a Blackhawks first-round draft pick who ranks fourth all time in franchise scoring, once commented that if they hadn’t had to play Edmonton in the conference finals three times, Chicago might have had a few more Stanley Cups.

One of their best chances came in 1991-92, when the Blackhawks gained a measure of revenge against Edmonton in the 1992 playoffs by sweeping the Oilers in the conference finals for their record-setting 11th consecutive postseason victory.

"That playoff run was amazing," Chris Chelios said. "We swept a few teams, and unfortunately at the end of it, Pittsburgh was on the same run with consecutive wins and ended up breaking the record that we had by beating us in the Final, but it was the highlight of my career with the Hawks."

Facing Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup Final, the Penguins won four in a row, although three of the games were decided by one goal. The series was tighter than it showed.

"It was disappointing that we got swept," Chelios said. "Losing on home ice hurt even more. But we had such a great run and great group of guys. It just hurts when you get that close and you end up losing."

What made that postseason especially unique was that it coincided with the Chicago Bulls' first NBA title run. The Chicago Stadium was rockin' every night.

"I don't know if they fed off of us but they hadn't won a championship yet and we sure fed off of them," Chelios said. "It just seemed like every other night, one of us was playing in the old Stadium and it was crazy. I got to go to a few games because of our schedule, we had to get our rest too, but it took a little bit of the heat off us when they won it all. That was MJ's first and that group of guys' first championship. It was magical."

Needless to say, the city of Chicago was electric as it rooted for both the Blackhawks and Bulls to bring home championships.

"I always said the 90s were some of my favorite years of my career," Chelios said. "It was my hometown, competitive teams, especially that year. Whenever you get to share a championship with a city, it's something special about it and I just, not regret, but it's one of those things where my career would've been a perfect career had I won the Cup with Chicago. But you can't have everything."

After 65 seasons at the Stadium, the Blackhawks played their last regular-season game there on April 14, 1994, against Toronto. The first game at the state-of-the-art United Center came on Jan. 25, 1995, with a 5-1 win over Edmonton.

The 28-consecutive-season playoff run came to an end during the 1997-98 campaign when the Blackhawks fell five points shy of San Jose for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, which would have tied the NHL record of 29 straight postseason appearances.

"It was an unbelievable run," Chelios said. "At some point, you pay the price afterwards by hanging in there instead of rebuilding, but I think you can ask any fan to management, you want to be competitive. You always want to give yourself a chance to make the Cup and you can't do that unless you make the playoffs. It was a great accomplishment and we never got the win, but again, there's something about making the playoffs. I've been on underdog teams that have gone deep in the playoffs and there's nothing like playoff hockey, the fans, it's the best experience you can have as a player."

The Blackhawks' new tradition of winning Stanley Cups has seen three since the United Center opened (2010, 2013, 2015), giving Chicago a total of six — matching the three Cups the Blackhawks won playing at the Stadium (1934, 1938, 1961).