Howe, Rocket had fierce NHL rivalry long before Crosby, Ovechkin

Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are celebrated now and long will be remembered as two of the greatest NHL players of their generation, indeed of all time.

The weekend matinees in Pittsburgh and Washington between Crosby’s Penguins and Ovechkin’s Capitals (Saturday 3 p.m. ET, ABC, TVAS, then Sunday 3 p.m. ET, HBO MAX, MNMT, truTV, TNT, SN360, TVAS) will mark the 75th and 76th times in the regular season, the 100th and 101st times including the Stanley Cup Playoffs, that the two superstars have faced off against each other.

Since their arrival in the NHL in 2005-06, the two sure-bet future Hockey Hall of Famers have been a compelling story, especially so when they have met head-to-head.

Crosby and Ovechkin have been spirited, mostly friendly rivals for two decades, drawing the best from each other.

Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin pose for a photo during the Great Clips NHL Breakaway Challenge event, part of the 2023 NHL All-Star Skills Competition in Sunrise, Florida.

In a very different time, with much less civility, Gordie Howe and Maurice “Rocket” Richard, two right wings who wore No. 9, were rivals of dramatic intensity. There was plenty of time for a score to be settled when the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens legends faced each other 14 times per season, then possibly in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

During the 14 seasons their careers intersected between 1946-60, and for long afterward, having met head to head 160 times in the regular season and 33 more in the playoffs, Howe and Richard were hotly debated in discussions about the greatest player of their era, perhaps ever.

In their 1986 Canadiens history, “Lions In Winter,” authors Chrys Goyens and Allan Turowetz reasonably stated, “You can still start a fist fight in certain drinking establishments … by simply stating that Richard was vastly superior to Howe, or vice-versa.”

Montreal Gazette columnist Tim Burke suggested in a 1980 column, “The debate was as foolish as it was feverish, for it was almost impossible to compare the two except that they were both fierce competitors and extraordinarily tough. Richard was a blazing offensive threat, one of the great clutch athletes of all time. Howe, with that effortless stride and limitless stamina, became the best all-around hockey player of them all.”

A 1953 Canadian Press poll of hockey writers had Howe named the League’s best player and Richard its most colorful performer.

Frequent comparisons between Howe, his best seasons with the Red Wings, and Richard, who played his entire career for the Canadiens, were made to Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, two New York Yankees icons of the 1920s and 1930s.

Gehrig was a machine, his durability, massive production and consistency unlike anything that Major League Baseball had seen. Ruth, meanwhile, routinely crushed the ball into tomorrow, a slugger with almighty power who often transcended the game he dominated at the plate.

In baseball cleats, they weren’t much unlike Howe and Richard in skates.

“There’s no doubt that Gordie was better than Maurice,” the Rocket’s younger brother, Henri, told The Gazette’s Burke. “But build two rinks across from one another. Then put Gordie in one and Maurice in the other and see which one would be filled.”

A rare action photo showing Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard in the same frame. From left: Richard, Marcel Pronovost, Dickie Moore, goalie Jacque Plante (hidden), Howe, Bernie Geoffrion, Red Kelly, Jean Beliveau and official Matt Pavelich on Nov. 20, 1958 at the Montreal Forum.

Consider that Maurice Richard wasn’t even the most successful player in his own household. Henri Richard, 14 years the junior of his big brother, won the Stanley Cup an NHL-record 11 times playing his entire career with the Canadiens, as his brother did. Maurice won “only” eight times, including five straight between 1956-60.

The Rocket would be the first to score 50 goals in an NHL season, that feat coming in 1944-45. He would be first, as well, to score 500 goals.

Howe, a four-time Stanley Cup winner, never scored 50; he had 49 in 1952-53, stymied in the final game of the season at Olympia Stadium by Canadiens goalie Gerry McNeil, the visitor obsessed with not letting the Red Wings star equal the Rocket’s 50.

Unofficially, McNeil foiled five quality Howe shots and a handful of others to keep Richard’s record intact until it was tied in 1960-61, the Rocket’s first year of retirement, by Canadiens forward Bernie “Boom-Boom” Geoffrion.

The NHL All-Star team before the Oct. 10, 1949 game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Bottom row, from left: Ken Reardon, Sid Abel, Bill Durnan, Chuck Rayner, Bob Goldham, Roy Conacher. Middle row: coach Tommy Ivan, Jack Stewart, Tony Leswick, Paul Ronty, Maurice Richard, Bill Quackenbush, Gordie Howe, NHL President Clarence Campbell. Top row: trainer Carl Mattson, Bill Mosienko, Glen Harmon, Ted Lindsay, Buddy O'Connor, Edgar Laprade, Doug Bentley, Pat Egan. The All-Stars beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1.

Of course, in time “Mr. Hockey” would leave the Rocket in his dust, passing the latter’s then-NHL-record 544 goals on Nov. 10, 1963 when he beat Canadiens goalie Charlie Hodge in 1-1 tie to become the League’s scoring king. He’d tied Richard with No. 544 against Montreal, as well, beating Gump Worsley in a 6-4 loss on Oct. 27, both games in Detroit.

Howe would finish his 1,767-game NHL career with 801 regular-season goals, 257 more than Richard scored in his 978 games.

During their careers, Richard averaged .56 goals per game, fractionally better than Howe’s .45.

“What can I say? It had to come,” Richard said upon Howe scoring No. 545, having been stalled at 544 for five games. “He can start playing his usual game again and go on to score 600 goals.”

By the end of Howe’s unparalleled career, he had 201 more than that.

Gordie Howe holds the puck he used to score his 545th regular-season goal on Nov. 10, 1963 at Olympia Stadium in Detroit. A newspaper artist added 545 to the rim of the puck to highlight the record-setting accomplishment.

The Rocket always spoke his mind, no matter how his remarks were viewed.

Three weeks before Howe claimed the top spot on the all-time list, Richard suggested that he never thought of his rival as a “money” or clutch player, and that it took the Red Wings star almost 280 more games to catch him at 544.

But the Rocket changed his tune a week before Howe’s milestone goal, praising him as “a great player” during a CBC television interview.

Speaking of Howe, 1950s and 1960s eight-time Stanley Cup-winning Canadiens coach Toe Blake would tell The Gazette’s Burke: “You had to cope with the stick, the elbows and then that body.”

Red Kelly and teammate Gordie Howe struggle to contain Maurice Richard in front of Detroit goalie Terry Sawchuk during a 1952 game at Olympia Stadium.

Of the fire-breathing Richard, former Canadiens GM Frank Selke Sr. wrote in “Behind The Cheering,” his 1962 autobiography, “The Rocket disdained finesse; he just kept shooting the puck at the net at every opportunity and from every angle until he became the leading scorer of all time.”

Richard had the edge in the win column, his Canadiens beating Howe’s Red Wings 62 times against 58 losses and four ties. Remarkably, both men scored 63 goals in the head-to-head games; Howe’s 79 assists topped Richard’s 58 (142-121 points).

In 33 playoff games, the Canadiens winning 18 and losing 15, Richard was four points better (30-26), with 17 goals and 13 assists compared to Howe’s 18 goals and eight assists.

Richard spent much more time in the penalty box, 319 minutes to Howe’s 189, 61 to 50 in the playoffs.

“I don’t think I played with anyone as driven and determined as Richard,” Howe said in “Gordie Howe: My Hockey Memories,” an autobiography of sorts published in 1999.

Gordie Howe in an early 1960s portrait, and in a newspaper photo with Maurice Richard, published on Nov. 11, 1963.

“In terms of raw talent and competitiveness, he was among the best ever and his speed and nose for the net haven’t been matched before or since.”

An oft-repeated fable has Howe knocking out Richard in a fight the first time they met as opponents, which never happened. But Rocket was decisioned by Howe in a wild second-period melee on Jan. 29, 1949, the only time they fought.

Richard took a swing at Howe as the latter tried to get into the Montreal Forum penalty box, narrowly missing referee King Clancy, earning himself a misconduct and a $25 fine. All of that followed three minor penalties that had been charged to the Rocket, who was sent to his dressing room, returned for the third period then had to leave the game, his hip injured in the fracas.

Richard’s intensity crackled like a bonfire; Howe often did his finest work behind the referee’s back, no one quite sure why there was a player crumpled in a corner as the play headed up ice.

Gordie Howe with coach Sid Abel in the Detroit Red Wings’ Montreal Forum dressing room following Howe’s 400th career goal, scored Dec. 13, 1958, and his 600th goal, scored Nov. 27, 1965.

In later years, Richard respectfully acknowledged that Howe was his greatest rival, saying that much of the NHL of the day was built on Mr. Hockey’s powerfully sloped shoulders.

If blood didn’t boil in retirement, it still simmered. When Howe announced in 1997 that he’d make a one-shift comeback at age 69 with the International Hockey League’s Detroit Vipers, Richard couldn’t help himself in a newspaper column under his name in French-language La Presse.

Rocket called Howe’s return “completely ridiculous, a publicity stunt,” to which Howe replied, “It took me 40 years to get to like the guy, and he ruined it with one sentence.”

Any grudge was well forgotten three years later. In Florida vacationing and promoting a book to raise funds for charity, Howe heard of Richard’s death to cancer at age 78 “and it hit me right between the eyes.”

He jumped in a car in Sarasota and drove to Detroit, flying in for the Rocket’s funeral the night before the service.

A Detroit Free Press story in their editions of Nov. 11, 1963, recording Gordie Howe’s 545th career regular-season goal, passing Maurice Richard for the NHL’s all-time scoring lead.

“Let’s just keep it going,” he said when quizzed about the Howe-Richard or Richard-Howe debate. “The Rocket was a tremendous hockey player. I can’t say it enough. The man made the League what it is today so the rest of us could make a living at it.”

Playfully, Howe had bought a toy poodle late in his life and named it Rocket.

In their prime, they were beauty and the beast, even if Howe’s beauty had sharp elbows that turned out the lights for many. Mr. Hockey was the perfectionist, Richard the opportunist; Howe was the more complete player, Richard the purer goal-scorer who carried opponents to the net on his back.

Howe entered Notre Dame Basilica with Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau, another great rival and a dear friend. In the days when fraternization between opponents was frowned upon, Beliveau would smuggle Howe and his wife, Colleen, from their Montreal hotel to the captain’s suburban home for dinner with himself and his wife, Elise.

A cheer went up outside the basilica when Howe stepped from a bus to pay his final respects to the Rocket. Two hours later, emerging from the church, another roar went up, an adoring crowd having just said goodbye to one of the greatest players in the game, eager to say hello to another.

Howe died 16 years later, on June 10, 2016 at age 88 following a lengthy illness. One can only imagine the greeting the Rocket had for Mr. Hockey when they met once more.

Top photos: Gordie Howe (l.) and Maurice Richard in early 1950s studio portraits.