Canadiens felt 1956 rule change doused their potent power play

Montreal Canadiens general manager Frank Selke insisted the NHL rule change adopted on June 6, 1956 was to punish his team, whose only crime, he said, was having too much firepower for its opponents.

"That's a lot of nonsense," sniffed Lynn Patrick, Selke's counterpart with the Boston Bruins, whose team was historically burned by the Canadiens seven months to the day earlier.

At its June 6, 1956 Board of Governors meeting in Montreal, five of the six NHL teams passed a proposal that called for the release of a minor-penalized player from the penalty box should a goal be scored by a team with the extra man. Predictably, the Canadiens opposed it.

Was a stick shoved in the spokes of Montreal's ferocious power play? It depends who you listen to. But this much is certain -- Jean Beliveau's three goals scored in a 44-second span of a single power play against the Bruins on Nov. 5, 1955 surely played a role.

At the Montreal Forum that night, Beliveau scored a hat trick in a single shift, victimizing Boston goalie Terry Sawchuk with Bruins defenseman Hal Laycoe sitting in the penalty box.

Delirious Canadiens fans loved that it was Laycoe, a reliable Boston penalty-killer, who helplessly witnessed it all. For it was Laycoe with whom Montreal icon Maurice "Rocket" Richard had tangled in Boston the previous March, bringing about the latter's suspension for the final three games of the regular season and the Stanley Cup Playoffs, ultimately touching off the so-called Richard Riot.

Beliveau scored at 42 seconds, then at 1:08 and 1:26 of the second period, the Canadiens vaulting in front of the Bruins after having trailed by two goals after 20 minutes.

And Montreal's future captain, in his third NHL season, wasn't finished with his night's work, having scored his second of 18 career hat tricks. He would add a fourth goal, at even strength at 15:53 of the third period, linemate Bert Olmstead assisting on all four in the Canadiens' 4-2 victory.

Canadiens linemates Bernie Geoffrion (left), Jean Beliveau (center) and Bert Olmstead in a 1957 photo.

It probably hadn't sat well with Boston the morning after the game, when a newspaper showed Beliveau posing in the dressing room with Olmstead for Canadiens photographer David Bier, happily holding up four pucks.

Selke, whose power play featured future Hall of Famers Beliveau, Richard and Olmstead up front with defenseman Doug Harvey and forward Bernie Geoffrion on the points, didn't try to hide his anger when the proposed rule change passed.

"You might outvote me on that one, but you'll never convince me of its justice," he said, quoted in D'Arcy Jenish's 2008 book, "The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory."

Selke pointed to the awesome power play of the Detroit Red Wings, whose late 1940s Production Line of Sid Abel, Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay, all future Hall of Famers, terrorized the League.

Detroit's famed Production Line in 1948. From left, Gordie Howe, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay.

"In all the years of Detroit's dominance and their almighty power play, there was no suggestion of such a [rule] change," he said. "Now [the] Canadiens have finally built one and you want to introduce a rule to weaken it. Go get a power play of your own."

Selke's fellow general managers shrugged off the rant, saying the vote was much more than 5-1 in favor of changing the rule.

"We tried it out in the [minor-pro] Western Hockey League last winter and everybody liked it," New York Rangers GM Frank Boucher said. "The Canadiens say they were outvoted on the rule 5-1. That's wrong. They were outvoted 19-1. The American [Hockey] league and the WHL and the other five NHL clubs voted for it. Only the Canadiens voted against it and that's why they're saying the rule was aimed at wrecking their power play."
Patrick supported the Bruins vote with a little reasoning.

"If a player draws a minor penalty for doing something illegal which may have saved a goal and while he's off the opposing team scores, there's no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to return immediately," he said. "The opposing team got the goal he may have saved by doing the thing he did which led to the penalty.

Jean Beliveau attacks the net of Boston's Terry Sawchuk in a March 1956 game at Boston Garden.

"Jack Adams (the Red Wings GM) advocated the new rule three years ago when Detroit had the best power play in hockey. He thought it would improve the game. There's always resistance to suggested rule changes, but once they're adopted, the criticism stops because it becomes obvious they worked an improvement."

Patrick dismissed the charge that releasing a penalized player after a goal would rob fans of offense in a tight-checking, defensive game.

"It depends which rink you're in. Sure, the crowd in Montreal liked it," he said, pointing to Beliveau's 44-second hat trick. "But suppose the Canadiens had been leading and it was the Bruins who scored three goals because of a penalty. How do you think the crowd would have felt? We blew a lead and a game in Boston last year because of a penalty and fans left the building muttering against us. We had about 4,000 fewer people at our next game than we would have if it hadn't happened."

Beliveau's four-goal night on Nov. 5, 1955 would be his only career hat trick against the Bruins. Five of his 18 came against Detroit, with three each against the Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks and Toronto Maple Leafs and one each against Boston, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Los Angeles Kings and Minnesota North Stars.

His 1955 explosion remains the second-fastest hat trick scored in NHL history, more than double the 21 seconds it took Chicago's Bill Mosienko on March 23, 1952 against the New York Rangers.

The 1955-56 Stanley Cup-winning Canadiens, the first of the team's five straight championships. GM Frank Selke is in the front row, third from right.

If Selke fumed about the 1956 rule change, Richard took it in stride.

"I think it's all right," the Rocket told Montreal Gazette columnist Dink Carroll. "How many times do you think we scored more than one goal while the other team was a man short?"

Quite a few times, Richard was told.

"It may seem like that to you," he replied with a laugh. "But I think if you checked back you'd find it didn't happen very often. Think of all the times we didn't score when we had an advantage."

As it turned out, the rule change didn't prevent the Canadiens from successfully defending their 1955-56 Stanley Cup championship. And they won three more consecutively after that during their 1956-60 streak.

Photos: David Bier/Montreal Canadiens; HHoF Images; Getty Images