Mowers went from Stanley Cup Final goat to hero for Red Wings

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his humor and insight with readers every Wednesday.
This week, Fischler recounts how goalie Johnny Mowers went from being the goat in the 1942 Stanley Cup Final to a hero in the '43 Final.

Johnny Mowers sat in front of his locker in the visitors' dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens on the night of April 18, 1942 and was almost in tears.
Crumpled would be the more vivid description of the forlorn Detroit Red Wings goalie. He hardly could think, let alone talk.
"He had hit rock bottom," former Toronto Maple Leafs publicist Ed Fitkin said. "It couldn't have been worse than what happened to Johnny."
What happened to Mowers is why some wordsmith invented "goat" to describe a personal disaster on the playing field; except in Mowers' case, it was on the ice.
The 1942 Stanley Cup Final between the Red Wings and Maple Leafs had looked like a breeze for Mowers in his second season under Detroit coach Jack Adams.
"When you're up three games to nothing," Mowers remembered, "it looks like the finish line is right up ahead of you."
The upstart Red Wings had confused Toronto with what then was a new offensive technique. The scores -- 3-2, 4-2 and 5-2 -- were a testament to Adams' secret weapon, now known as dump and chase.
"We had perfected that style," said Red Wings sharpshooter Syd Howe, no relation to Gordie. "It consisted of terrific forechecking by Sid Abel, Don Grosso and Eddie Wares. For three games Toronto hadn't caught on to it."
But Maple Leafs coach Hap Day finally figured it out and dramatically changed his strategy. And that's when Mowers' game began to deteriorate.
Day benched failing veteran defenseman Bucko McDonald and slumping sniper Gordie Drillon and replaced them with fast youngsters, Don Metz, Ernie Dickens and Bob Goldham.
"When Detroit shot it into our zone," Goldham recalled, "we'd fire it right back out. That also was a new wrinkle. Our new faces were faster guys and we just killed Detroit from then on."
Sure enough, pouring it on Mowers with three straight wins -- 4-3, 9-3, 3-0 - the Maple Leafs forced a decisive seventh game, putting the Red Wings and their goalie on the hot seat.
"We got the breaks in the first three games," Detroit's Ebbie Goodfellow said, "and they got them in the next three. But we're going to give them a battle for the Cup."
In a sense it came down to a battle of the goalies, Mowers vs. Turk Broda. The latter eventually would go down in NHL history as one of the top clutch goalies of all-time. Mowers, by contrast, is long forgotten.
In Game 7, the Red Wings gifted Mowers with a one-goal lead early in the second period and nursed it into the third. But then Toronto's forwards got to Johnny and he wilted.
First, Sweeney Schriner scored for the Maple Leafs at 6:46 of the third period, followed by utility forward Pete Langelle at 9:43 with the Cup winner. Schriner then added a cushion goal.
Broda held the fort and Toronto finished Game 7 with a 3-1 win and what is considered by many to be the greatest comeback in Stanley Cup Final history.
"Part of the reason Detroit lost," concluded Hockey News columnist Ken Campbell, "was because Mowers gave up 19 goals in the final four games including nine in Game 5. A humiliation like that might have felled a lesser man."
But those who knew Mowers understood that he was built to be a resilient athlete as far back as his Junior days in Niagara Falls. That's when Adams' top scout Carson Cooper discovered the youngster.
"I told Jack that Johnny was good enough to replace Tiny Thompson" said Cooper. "Thompson had been one of the best but I knew that Mowers was ready and he proved it right off the bat."
In Mowers' rookie season in 1940-41, he led all NHL goalies in games played (48) and was regarded as one of the best in the game. He remained in the higher echelon until the '42 Final, when he donned the goat horns.
Crushed as he was by the defeat, Mowers refused to be mentally beaten.
"When we opened camp the next fall," Adams said, "I knew that I still had a winning goalie on my roster."
At the very top of his form in the 1942-43 season, Mowers played in all 50 regular-season games. He won 25, had six shutouts and finished with a 2.42 goals against average.
"A humiliation like Johnny suffered would have felled a lesser man, but Mowers came back with a vengeance and won the Vezina Trophy (voted as the top goalie in the NHL)," Campbell said.
He didn't stop there. Revenge was sweet as Mowers helped lead Detroit to a first-round playoff victory over Toronto in six games. That done, he helped lead the Red Wings to a sweep of the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, not allowing a single goal in Games 3 and 4.
Nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find a fan who knows about Mowers' heroics and how -- before his greatest triumph -- came the ultimate humiliation.
"The defeat in '42 made him stronger" Campbell wrote, "and it enabled him to complete one of the best individual stories of redemption ever."
From goat to hero in one year!